









































































































































































































































































































































































r> 



Class T'^Z.T’S 
Rnnk .“O inf', 5 9 
GopyiightN?_ C.c3- _ 

C. OP / “gj 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


1 


■ 


















CABLES OF COBWEB 



Cables of Cobweb 



PAUL JORDAN.SMITH 


“/Te are unwilling to spin out 
our awaking thoughts into phan¬ 
tasms of sleep, .. . making cables 
of cobwebs, and wildernesses of 
handsome groves . . . the world is 
but a dream or a mock-show, and 
we all therein but pantaloons and 
antics.” —Sir Thomas Browne. 



NEW YORK 

LIEBER LEWIS 

MCMXXIII 

















Copyright, 1923, 

By LIEBER & LEWIS 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


/ 

APR-7 *23' 


©C1A704075 




TO SARAH 



I 


H E hated his father; he despised the dull 
church that was stripped of every sweet bit 
of ceremonial magic, and made to do service 
as a sort of vulgar debating hall; he disliked the con¬ 
fining walls of a school-room where the genial lines 
of Horace had to be halted over in the cause of 
grammar, and where old Malory had to be disposed 
of with a date; it was all out of tune with his moods 
and at discord with his dreams—and his dreams 
mattered. Why didn’t the others dream as he did 
when he was alone lying stretched out on the floor of 
the library, beneath the old piano, or when he walked, 
as he was doing, out under the stars? Nature yielded 
a cruel magic, but it was magic; books abounded 
with a sort of necromancy that took one away from 
the sordid necessity of choosing one’s breakfast-food; 
but people, most people, seemed to insist upon literal 
details, facts, news, gossip of this and that—frim- 
fram and rules. 

He waved his arms in protest and ran up the hill 
to the old chestnut tree that just now was the hiding 
place of the moon. The gaunt tree was an ally and 
had heard his plaints before tonight, but never had it 
listened to a more scathing story of the meanness of 
mankind than was now poured forth in the very face 
of the full moon. People were cruel without being 
interesting, hypocrites without being clever, stupid 
without being funny, and educated without being 
anything. At this safe distance from human hearing 
he would hurl anathema at the swine. 

“Damn!” he cried. 



8 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


He looked up. No stars had fallen; perhaps the 
leaves shivered, but the jocund moon seemed unper¬ 
turbed and blandly amused as before. From some¬ 
where off in the mountains came the melancholy 
notes of a hunter’s horn, and the baying of a hound 
seemed to mock him with derision. 

That was always the way; one couldn’t impress 
anything. 


II 


J EFFREY was no doubt somewhat of a prig, and 
made his fellows as uncomfortable as they made 
him. At fifteen no well-bred American should 
rebel against his universe nor condemn his race. It is 
bad form to have higher-than-thou ideals at any age, 
especially if one is to be a Virginia gentleman and 
live in a Democracy. 

So the boy was something of a pariah, and not a 
welcome addition to any group of wholesome, normal 
youths who chose to spend their time in frolic. Of 
course, being the son of the Reverend John Collings¬ 
worth gave him a place and a distinction among the 
solemn, verjuice-eyed adults of Oldbern, but it made 
him suspect among their sons. Added to this, was 
the serious fault of having a private tutor instead of 
attending public school, in which the minister was 
sure that his son would acquire the wickedness of the 
flesh and a careless disregard of the things a gentle¬ 
man should know and revere. The fact that the tutor, 
Mr. Washington Webb, was not a native of the 
county, and was a Princeton man, made matters all 
the more unpleasant; it implied a feeling of superior¬ 
ity. Then, too, Jeffrey was an alien in that he was 
an only child and, in consequence, confined to an 
association of rigidly proper grown folk who spent 
their days discussing souls, hereafters, damnations, 
death-bed repentences, missionaries, symptoms, col¬ 
lege donations, church fairs, homiletics, exegeses, 
vanity, small heterodoxies, and, for variety, in very 
quiet laughter at the crude dialects of the “pore white 
trash.” 


10 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


There was a day, a Sabbath day at that, when old 
Dave Epperlie, famous, in the Appalachian region, as 
a moonshiner and hunter, came walking past the 
church sans guns, hounds, or any belongings which 
might suggest “hunter” to a boy whose knowledge 
of such things came from books. 

“There’s Hunter Dave just back from the moun¬ 
tains,” whispered an admiring lad, nudging Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey gazed intently in the direction indicated. 

“But where are his accoutrements?” he questioned. 

“Accoutrements!” The boys were convulsed with 
indignant laughter. “He would use a word with four 
syllables, would he? Damned snob, to speak in an 
unknown tongue.” Later he saw Crockett, the drug¬ 
gist, pointing him out to a stranger. He heard the 
word “accoutrements,” and then, as they looked at 
him once more, the men laughed. His face burned, 
and his only revenge was a feeling of conscious su¬ 
periority. Mr. Webb always used this word, and he 
himself had verified it out of Webster. It was correct 
enough. These people were nobodies. 

This tendency towards an anti-social feeling, was 
further fostered by his friendship with the darkies, 
who, from having been owned by his Grandfather 
Collingsworth, still remained, in some capacity, as 
house servants among the numerous members of the 
family. Rhoda, the old cook, was sturdily of the 
opinion that most of the Collingsworth parishioners 
were “nothin’ but low down white trash, not fitten 
to ’soshiate wif gentlemans. ’Cose they don’t under¬ 
stand no edgeicated langwidge.” 

These sentiments, universal among the negroes, 
were as balm to the boy’s soul, and he did not stop 
to consider the natural prejudice from which they 
arose. The negroes looked with disdain upon these 
humble and somewhat shiftless folk, just as the Epis- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


11 


copalians and Presbyterians scorned the Methodists. 
The Collingsworths were Presbyterians and received 
their religion with becoming reserve and decency. 
But the Methodists were, according to Jeffrey’s 
father, noisy, perspiring, unctious and common. Their 
colleges were diploma mills, and they stooped to 
questionable practises in athletics, and had golden- 
oak furniture. Altogether they were a bad lot; but 
unfortunately they were numerous, and, through their 
public school associations, even the sons of gentle¬ 
men were becoming vulgar. That, in John Collings¬ 
worth’s opinion, was the cause of his son’s unpopu¬ 
larity. 

The Collingsworths had lived in the county since 
those pre-revolutionary days when the land grants had 
encouraged settlers from eastern Virginia to move to 
the mountain districts, and the early comers, among 
whom was Crockett Collingsworth Sr., held claim to 
the choice fertile valleys where living, thanks to the 
genial institution of slavery, was easy. Those thus 
favored either were, or, owing to their possessions, 
soon became gentle folk. The Collingsworths had 
been sufficiently at ease about their social standing 
to be unambitious, and were content with their hold¬ 
ings, the land passing in every case to the eldest son, 
who, after a few years at Wythe College, or, later, at 
Charlottesville, settled down to the business of being 
a gentleman farmer. The other sons became, for the 
most part, country lawyers, members of the Govern¬ 
or’s staff, and occasionally, one more impractical than 
the rest, took a degree in theology at Hamden-Sid- 
ney or Princeton. The Civil War had disturbed this 
order of things to a degree, had made farming less 
agreeable, and had, for a time, cast a deadening in¬ 
fluence over all the youth of the South. Oldbern had 
known no poverty before, but with the emancipation 


12 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


of the negro, the place had become fringed about with 
its “darky town” of semi-starving blacks who must 
needs be subject to charity. They were enslaved by 
freedom. Gradually there came an adjustment in an 
economic way, but the negroes and poor whites were 
at one another’s throats, and out of the bitter feeling 
between these two classes arose those little lynching 
bees which have served to advertise that section of 
America as a very center of sadistic fury. 

Yet to Jeffrey when he was alone, walking over 
hills carpeted with blue grass, or searching in the 
great woods for the first blossoms of the arbutus, 
Virginia yielded a peaceful charm. For one thing, he 
was able to say almost unutterable things to the 
trees, and having relieved his spirit of its weight of 
bitterness and been made clean of human restraint, 
he could give himself up to a sort of natural magic 
by means of which there was an escape into a world 
of like-mindedness and magnanimity. Sitting on the 
bank of a clear cold mountain stream he could nibble 
at a handful of water-cress and conjure up fancies of 
strange and terrible gods who were lecherous and yet 
• benign; hybrid creatures out of Lucian and Homer, 
curiously crossed by goblins from Munchausen, and 
fairies out of Daphnis and Chloe. To these he would, 
in a more prosaic mood, sometimes address questions 
such as: “Why does my father say that Thomas 
Paine and Darwin were sodomites, and that Emerson 
was an adulterer? Why do all socialists drink beer, 
and all evolutionists run away from their wives?” 
And the mongrel gods would wink at one another 
and laugh. 

Most of all, the boy was excluded by paternal vigi¬ 
lance from contacts with any youth not known to be 
both pure and well born. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


13 


When some of the curious and venturesome lads of 
Oldbern had essayed to call upon Jeffrey, they had 
been invariably received in the parlor where one of 
the parents remained, a watchful and uncompromis¬ 
ing guardian of juvenile propriety. Nor were these 
bold intruders permitted an exit into the more ex¬ 
pansive domains of the yard or garden, where parent¬ 
al vigilance could not readily be exercised; they might 
not even go into the playroom. Conversation was 
therefore very difficult, and, for some strange reason 
the visitors never returned. 

There had been one memorable exception to this 
dismal rigidity, made at a time when Mr. Collings¬ 
worth had been called away from home for a few 
weeks, so that his more unsophisticated wife was 
wholly responsible for the son’s welfare. Master 
Harold Sibley, an engaging and innocent-eyed youth 
of about thirteen years, had called. He was com¬ 
pelled, owing to some slight affliction, to use a crutch, 
and this misfortune had the two-fold effect of arous¬ 
ing Mrs. Collingsworth’s sympathy, and suggesting 
to her mind the impossibility of Harold’s attempting 
any very dangerous escapades. The Sibleys were 
newcomers in Oldbern, but they were known to be of 
an excellent Virginia family and from a county that 
was without reproach. Harold was therefore wel¬ 
comed with a greater degree of hospitality than was 
usually extended to the youth of the town. Jeffrey 
was out at the moment, so that his mother was able 
to study the visitor to greater advantage. 

“I have heard lots of nice things about your son, 
Mrs. Collingsworth,” Harold began, in a Sunday 
School voice,—“My Mama doesn’t like me to play 
with bad boys who use naughty words, and when she 
heard what a good boy Jeffrey is she wanted me to 
come over and get acquainted. So many of the boys 


14 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


here are rough that I don’t wonder you keep him at 
home.” Harold had been well informed concerning 
the Collingsworth prejudices and possessed a psy¬ 
chology beyond his years. 

“Yes, home is the best place for boys,” agreed 
Mrs. Collingsworth, visibly impressed by this out¬ 
burst of piety,—“and I am glad to meet a boy who is 
so sensible. I have often wished that Jeffrey could 
have a suitable playmate, but so many of the boys 
are wild that we have thought it best to keep him 
entertained here. Do you go out and play with the 
boys in Oldbern?” 

“Oh no, ma’am,” Harold replied, “I love to stay at 
home and read, and play with my sister Evelyn. Then, 
on Saturday, we get our Sunday School lesson to¬ 
gether, and when Sunday comes, we go to church, 
and I think we have fun enough at that. But I do 
wish you would let Jeffrey come over to our house 
and play.” 

When Jeffrey entered the room, a few minutes 
later, he was astonished to find this newcomer, whom 
he had seen several times at Sunday School, on warm 
terms of intimacy with his mother. 

“Jeffrey,” said Mrs. Collingsworth, delighted at be¬ 
ing able to impart so pleasant a surprise with such a 
satisfied conscience, “Harold has invited you to go 
over to his home to play a new game with him and 
his sister. They have invented a guessing game which 
they play from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and I 
think it would be very nice for you to go.” 

Jeffrey was amazed beyond the power of coherent 
utterance, but he radiated delight. He did not wholly 
share his mother’s enthusiasm for young Sibley, but 
he was entranced with the notion of escape from adult 
supervision. 

“Be sure not to go anywhere outside of Harold’s 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


15 


yard,” cautioned Mrs. Collingsworth, as the two boys 
were leaving,—“and come straight home when you 
are through playing. Be here by half past five.” 

On the way Jeffrey noticed that his companion’s 
speech lost, yard by yard, the rigid tone of propriety 
which had been its chief characteristic within the 
precincts of the Manse. When they had advanced no 
more than a hundred yards from the minister’s house, 
Harold had ventured to introduce some mild bit of 
slang; and, by the time they had reached the front 
gate of the less hallowed home, he had descended to 
outright profanity. Jeffrey was surprised, but he felt 
he was going on a real lark. 

Evelyn was Harold’s twin sister, and, true to prom¬ 
ise, when the embarrassed introductions were over, 
one of the twenty-five volumes of the encyclopaedia 
was brought by that young lady and carefully laid 
upon the library table. Father and Mother, she in¬ 
formed him, were out, so they could have all the fun 
they wished. The game consisted in guessing the 
meaning of certain pictures in the book. With unfal¬ 
tering fingers she opened the volume to a place al¬ 
ready stained by eager thumbs, where was an illus¬ 
trated article on obstetrics. Pointing to an engraving 
setting forth the technique of the Caesarian operation, 
she demanded with a giggle, “What does that mean, 
Jeffrey ?” 

But Jeffrey was unable to speak! 

“Aw, Sis,” Harold intervened, fearing that she had 
gone too far in her first venture, and seeing Jeffrey’s 
painful confusion,—“that’s too unpleasant; get the 
volume that has about ‘Bladder’.” 

After displaying these fascinatingly shocking works 
of art for a time, and seeing that they elicited no 
articulate response from their blushing visitor, Evelyn 
was inspired to suggest:—“There are lots of things 


16 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


you haven’t seen, Jeffrey, and I reckon I could show 
you a lot more that are not in the books.” Then, 
with a meaning laugh and a significant look directed 
at her brother, she turned and ran, giggling, out of 
the room, calling, over her shoulder,—“I’ll be in the 
hay-loft; you know where, Harold.” 

Jeffrey was made very ill-at-ease by this mysterious 
behavior. He felt that something, far beyond his sim¬ 
ple understanding, was being suggested,—something 
terrifying. He wished that Mr. and Mrs. Sibley were 
at home, and yet feared their sudden return. Things 
were not right somehow. 

Then Harold explained :— 

“Sis saw you at Sunday School and wanted me to 
bring you over. Come on and let’s go out to the 
barn, and she will show you something that will 
make your eyes open. The folks are away and we 
can have some fun. Come on, there won’t be any 
harm in it.” 

Unwittingly, Mrs. Collingsworth had sent her son 
to the home of the most experienced young profli¬ 
gates in the town. The Sibley twins were gifted with 
more than ordinary curiosity about anatomic details, 
and had mutually satisfied this craving to the point 
of satiety (their relations were, strictly speaking, a 
trifle inside the Mosaic proscriptions), and now they 
proposed a more embracing field of activity; they 
were ready to spread their knowledge abroad unself¬ 
ishly, and Harold was acting the part of an extension- 
agent, or, in more vulgar parlance, a procurer. 

These things were not quite apparent to Jeffrey’s 
immature mind, but he knew, instinctively, that what 
he was expected to witness in the barn was a thing 
that would bring down the wrath of two pairs of 
furious parents; and he stood in great fear of that 
wrath. Moreover he was dreadfully embarrassed, and 






CABLES OF COBWEB 


17 


almost ready to cry. Seizing his hat, he rushed from 
the house as though pursued by demons. 

A few days later he confided as much as he had 
been able to interpret of this experience to Tom, one 
of the cook’s sons, who, after enlargements made 
possible by a vastly wider knowledge of the world 
and the flesh, retold it to his mother, Rhoda, who, in 
her turn, communicated it, with emphasis, to her 
mistress. 

“Dear me!” exclaimed that agitated lady, now con¬ 
science stricken at having furthered such a criminal 
association in her husband’s absence, and fearful of 
harsh criticism on his return,—“That just shows that 
it won’t do to trust any children whatever.” 

Shortly after Mr. Collingsworth’s return Jeffrey 
noticed that the Sibley twins left off coming to Sun¬ 
day School, and, a little later, the family moved away 
from town; Jeffrey never knew just why, but he did 
know that parental vigilance had become more rigid 
than ever before. 


Ill 


T HE front pew was a very uncomfortable place 
for a minister’s son who was in perpetual anx¬ 
iety lest his father should by, some awkward 
gesture, scatter his manuscript (a catastrophe that, 
indeed, had fallen upon the minister on a warm 
spring day when the windows had been left open to 
a disrespectful breeze), or, lest the stiff white ecclesi¬ 
astical tie should be disarranged, or the sacerdotal 
trousers become unbuttoned. It was far more endur¬ 
able when there was a stranger in the pulpit. If any¬ 
thing happened to him the boy could join in the 
amusement of such ungodly as might be moved to 
mirth in such a place and at the expense of such a 
dignitary. In any event Jeffrey would not feel that 
he was to blame or that he would suffer the subse¬ 
quent jibes of the members of the Sunday School. 
This day the pulpit was occupied by Dr. Luther An¬ 
drews of Philadelphia, who was traveling in the 
South in the interest of some Presbyterian educa¬ 
tional fund. Jeffrey liked the minister’s collar which 
was not quite so prim as his father’s, and somehow 
suggested a more amiable piety. The black tie 
seemed quite fetching to the boy’s eye. And then the 
man’s voice, as he read out the lesson, had a reson¬ 
ance that thrilled him to the marrow. Jeffrey even 
liked the man’s harsh “r’s” and secretly resolved to 
imitate his pronunciation. The sermon had to do 
with affairs that were seldom mentioned at his 
father’s desk,—social justice, freedom, and the duty 
of clear thinking; with illustrations from Dickens, 
Henry George, Gerald Massey, and Thomas Hardy. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


19 


The minister brought his sermon to a close by quot¬ 
ing part of George Eliot’s Choir Invisible. Jeffrey was 
tense with excitement, expecting to see his father 
leap to his feet and throttle the man. He had heard 
his father’s diatribes against George Eliot, and fan¬ 
cied that the woman’s writings reeked with infidelity. 
He now saw that this piece, at any rate, was harm¬ 
less, and hoped that his father would let him read 
Adam Bede. Mr. Collingsworth, to Jeffrey’s amaze¬ 
ment, sat unmoved and apparently nodding. He had 
assumed that attitude of prayer which seemed fitting 
when a strange minister was in his pulpit. It was as 
if he were asking the protection of Heaven against 
the spread of heresy in his flock. 

Back at the Manse, where Dr. Andrews was guest, 
no mention of the sermon was made at a table where 
the sermon was the invariable accompaniment of the 
sabbath meal. It seemed an outrageous violation of 
decency to neglect the discussion of the one enjoy¬ 
able sermon Jeffrey had ever heard. His father’s dis¬ 
courses had, somehow, no savour. They were too 
familiar, too heavily laden with sin and damnation, 
and the poetic adornments came from such impossi¬ 
ble singers as Dryden, Pope, Young, and Kirke 
White. 

Jeffrey was not old enough to enjoy the antique in 
theology, or he might have had a keener sense of 
appreciation. His father was as much of an antique 
as one of his own Chippendale chairs; but the chair 
had a beauty that the boy’s eye could see, and an 
association with a past full of the traditions of dear 
people; whereas the father seemed to him to have 
resolved himself into a barrier against every one of 
his son’s natural instincts. Such charm as he had 
was obscured by his constant meddling with his son’s 
beliefs. To have the right belief, sound doctrine, the 


20 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


correct theory of this and that, seemed, to Mr. Col¬ 
lingsworth, of supreme importance. His amiability 
toward mild heresies outside his household was as¬ 
sumed for social reasons, or was a prelude to some 
subtle campaign for the heretic’s salvation. He was 
doubtless sincere in his desire to see all men Presby¬ 
terians, Democrats, and upholders of Southern tradi¬ 
tion; but for the salvation of the majority he could 
bide his time. On the other hand, when alien ideas 
even so much as hovered about his own roof tree, he 
would be seized by a fanatic and ungovernable rage, 
and lay about him indiscriminately, blaming everyone 
and accusing even his mild-eyed wife of conspiring to 
overthrow the foundations of order and decency. 
Jeffrey had been the target of abuse on these occa¬ 
sions often enough to have a wholesome dread of 
scenes and a growing hatred of the ideas that pro¬ 
voked such panic. Lacking logic, and unacquainted 
with the world, he imagined that all who held ideas 
contrary to those of his parents were tolerant, sweet, 
wholesome, magnanimous; were, in fact, like his 
grandfather who had shrugged his shoulders and said 
that it didn’t matter. Dr. Andrews, Jeffrey felt, was 
a delightful person. He wanted to tell him as much. 
At any rate it could do no harm to tell him how much 
he had enjoyed his sermon. Presently there was a 
pause in the conversation. Very self-conscious, and 
blushing at his boldness, he ventured: “Dr. Andrews, 
I enjoyed your sermon today very much.” 

“Thank you, Jeffrey, I am very glad you did, for 
sermons are apt to bore boys at your age.” 

“I could listen to a sermon like that for a whole 
day without being bored,” Jeffrey assured him. He 
hoped that Dr. Andrews, like his father, would ask 
what part of the sermon he fancied most, but fearing 
that he would not, and resolved to unburden himself 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


21 


while there was opportunity, he hastened to add— 
“You talked about so many modern things that I 
like to hear discussed, and that was a beautiful quo¬ 
tation from George Eliot, and I don’t believe any one 
will ever go to France after what you said about the 
Dreyfus case, and-” 

“Doctor, won’t you have another piece of chicken?” 
interrupted Mr. Collingsworth in a more profane tone 
than was common in the presence of guests, and one 
that was supposed to convey to the uninitiate no more 
than the simple interrogation, while to the unhappy 
son it was the equivalent of—“Damn you, you im¬ 
pertinent young traitor, you will cast reflections on 
my sermons, will you? And you dare mention the 
name of George Eliot at my table? Well now, shut 
up! Decency forbids my thrashing you now, and say¬ 
ing what is in my mind, but you know, confound you, 
and are properly afraid. You won’t take advantage 
of me, sir! Just you wait.” 

Mrs. Collingsworth was able to translate this mes¬ 
sage also, and into her soft brown eyes there came a 
look of pity for her luckless son. Her lips quivered in 
helpless sympathy. Jeffrey wanted to hold her hand. 

When the visiting minister was gone the storm did 
break, though not so violently as the boy had antici¬ 
pated. Mr. Collingsworth, fearing that Jeffrey would 
attribute the origin of his rage to some base motive, 
sought to appear reasonable. 

“I am not scolding you for praising Dr. Andrews’ 
sermon, Jeffrey,” he explained, “but for the way you 
did it. Why couldn’t you simply have said that you 
enjoyed it without inferring that you had never heard 
a modern note from your father’s pulpit before?” 

“I didn’t mean that sir, I-” 

“Ah, yes you did, sir, don’t deny it; and it was a 
serious reflection on me and my work. You know 




22 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


that your father does address himself to modern top¬ 
ics when they are suitable for the pulpit. If I don’t 
quote that Eliot creature, or make my sermons into 
stump speeches, it is because I am not a Yankee, and 
still have some religion and self-respect, sir. But, of 
course, everybody is more interesting than your 
father!” 

All this ado seemed out of proportion to the of¬ 
fense, yet it somehow made Jeffrey sad instead of 
angry, and he went away from the study wishing that 
he were dead. 


IV 


O NE smiling afternoon in the springtime, when 
his lessons were done, and Mr. Webb had 
gone upstairs complaining of a headache, Jef¬ 
frey slipped out unobserved and set out for Wygal’s 
Peak where he thought to gather an armful of laurel 
blossoms or, perhaps, a few buds of calycanthus, and 
where he might, betimes, read a few lines of Conning- 
ton’s Horace which he had secretly hid in an inner 
pocket. Connington was really a “pony,” but his ren¬ 
dering made Horace so much more human than old 
Webb did, that even that careful pedagogue was not 
able to destroy the great pagan’s ironic charm. The 
boy stole out back of the barn, stopped long enough 
to feed a bit of sugar to a grateful mare who whinnied 
at his approach, and then bounded away, with glad¬ 
ness in his eyes, toward the hills. Presently he came 
to an old lichen-covered rail fence rambling by a 
winding lane. Once in the embanked roadway he was 
protected from view and his gait moderated. Now he 
drew forth the book and read as he walked— 

“I bid the unhallowed crowd avaunt.” 

Why this was similar to Emerson’s Self-Reliance, 
and if Emerson was a scoundrel, why was Webb per¬ 
mitted to teach Horace? Did independence make ras¬ 
cals? If so, rascals must be pleasant people; they 
could not, by any chance, be more unpleasant than 
pious folk. Perhaps even Hell was not undesirable; 
it was the habitation of happy and wicked genius. 

With such unhallowed thoughts he approached the 
wooded hills where the fragrance of sycamore and 
gum trees, and the hum of bees among the dog-wood 



24 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


blossoms, and the murmur of a stream that ran on 
to the meadows below, perforce dispelled his mood, 
and, dropping down beneath a purple flowering Judas 
tree, he gave himself up to the ecstasy of being an 
animal in the springtime. 

Overhead was a robin, calling to his raucus mate 
in a neighboring poplar, and the leaves about him 
rustled beneath the tiny feet of curious wrens. The 
colors around him were splashes of purple and white, 
magenta and rose, lavender and scarlet—a curious 
mixture, arranged by a blundering artist; and yet 
here, in these woods, they provided an instant har¬ 
mony. From the upper branches of the great poplar 
hung a muscadine vine that soon would bear scaly, 
tough-skinned grapes with a most delicious flavor. 
The vine swayed in the slight breeze, and seemed to 
have been put there as a swing for teetering birds 
and mischievous boys. But the forest fragrance 
seemed, more than all else, to furnish healing to Jef¬ 
frey’s mood of discontent. He loved smells—even 
barnyard smells were sweet; a sweating horse, freshly 
curried, or the fragrant collar just removed after a 
long drive; the pungent odor of a distant skunk, the 
peculiar fragrance of the sweet gum and birch—these 
things, more than color, were the releasing forces of 
nature. He was a curious mixture; very animal of 
animals among the primitive; in the study he was a 
precocious esthete, and a lover of fine-cut phrases and 
subtle decoration. He was now in the mood of one 
who, coming off the noisy streets with their hateful 
odors of commerce and sin, turns into an ancient 
cathedral and, yielding to the sorceries of dim lights 
and incense and the age-old symbols of passion and 
prayer, seeks sanctity in confession. Behind that 
screen of laurel Pan, perhaps, was priest. He began 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


25 


to mutter aloud his litany of woes, and his statement 
of faith: 

“Yes, I am a mis-fit down there in the Manse; 
everything I think is wrong. I love nothing in the 
world but my mother whose tearful silence at father’s 
damned fussing betokens sympathy; my old grandad 
who cared for horses and just chuckled when people 
argued; and then some books, such as Homer, Defoe 
and Edgar Allan Poe. I hate the Bible and the dingy 
hymns, and I hate politics. I want to run away, but 
haven’t the courage. If I could get away and do as I 
liked, without my infernal father, I could be as the 
other fellows. Surely the boys in New England are 
different. They read Emerson, and do as they please; 
and there are no brawling Methodists nor sour Pres¬ 
byterians up there to spoil it all. Evolution is taught, 
and the people are free. I suppose that if I could 
know the wicked element here it would be better, but 
I am a misfit. God! if the people would live out here 
instead of in houses they wouldn’t worry so over sin 
and baptism and their miserable little politics. Still, 

the houses are nice, too, in their way”-The big 

white ancestral home a few miles back in the country 
where Jeffrey spent most of his summers, had been 
built of walnut, and out on the veranda were quaint 
Windsor chairs, and in the hallway was a fine old 
inlaid clock; and there was a Heppelwhite sideboard 
that had belonged to his grandmother, and some curi¬ 
ous pewter lamps, and a high white mantel, from 
which, at Christmas time, had hung four generations 
of stockings. He went on: “It is the people who 
make messes of things, and among these the educated 
are the worst. The darkies are kindly and ignorant 
and happy. Knowledge seems necessary for existence; 
but ignorance is required for happiness—so there you 



26 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


It was growing late, and seeing the coming shadows 
Jeffrey rose and, brushing off the leaves from his gar¬ 
ments, began to gather an armful of flowers as a 
peace offering and an excuse for his long absence. 

Coming out of the thick underbrush into the mead¬ 
ow he paused for a moment, his attention arrested by 
a group of men who seemed to be running toward a 
pine-clad hillock a quarter of a mile away. “Strange 
what they can want up there,” he thought. Then he 
remembered that there was a long abandoned cabin 
tucked away in the pines, one that he had visited 
some years before with the delicious expectation of 
finding a ghost. But what could any one want there? 
From this distance the men seemed to be excited, and 
their behavior made him curious. He must find what 
they were about. He ran rapidly across the field, and, 
by using a short cut, came up with the crowd just as 
they entered the clump of pines. They were too 
intent upon what they were doing to notice him. 

A voice from the cabin announced—“Here he is, 
fellers, we’ve got him treed. He’s unda the floor.” 
A satisfied laugh followed this speech, and Jeffrey 
recognized the spokesman as Hoge Harrison, the lo¬ 
cal constable. The seven or eight persons who had 
followed him, and were now gathered, puffing from 
their unwonted exertions, about the cabin, were vil¬ 
lage loafers whose sole claim to prominence lay in 
their proficiency in throwing horseshoes, or in their 
expectorative accuracy when engaged in the gentle 
task of killing* flies with tobacco juice. 

“Roust him out!” shouted one. 

“Come on outa there from unda that floor!” de¬ 
manded the constable, striking his club against the 
logs. “You want me to shoot you full of lead, you 
damned nigger?” 

“Who is it?” Jeffrey nervously inquired, his imag- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


27 


ination fired to the point of believing that the floor 
concealed some feud-entangled murderer. 

“Oh, it’s that triflin’ little Major Fenley, old Rose’s 
coon. He’s been a stealin’ old man Oliver’s chickens, 
and when Hoge tried to ketch him, he run out here 
like a Texas jack rabbit,” one of the men explained 
in a tone of derision. 

Jeffrey remembered Major as an undersized negro 
boy, of about fourteen, who had frequently played 
about with some of his own Mammy Rhoda’s numer¬ 
ous progeny. 

“I’m gonna shoot,” cried Harrison, thrusting a 
shining revolver beneath the logs—one, two, -” 

“I’s cornin’ Boss, ’fore God, don’t shoot. I’s 
cornin’,” came a muffled voice from beneath the 
cabin, followed almost immediately by a black woolly 
head, sprinkled liberally with dust and cobwebs. 
Don’t shoot, boss,” sobbed the small darky, showing 
the whites of his eyes, and trembling in terror. 

In reply Harrison thrust forward a great hand and 
seized the terrified boy by the collar, jerking him to 
his feet with a snap. “You wfill run away from me, 
will you? You sassy nigger!” he shouted. Then, 
without warning, he raised the stout club and brought 
it down with a sickening crack upon the boy’s head. 
“I’ll teach you,” cried the enraged constable, furious 
at having had to abandon his comfortable seat on the 
cracker box in front of Giles’ grocery, and he followed 
the statement with another resounding blow. The 
men laughed and spat with glee. The negro was too 
near unconscious to even groan, but the blood spouted 
from his mouth and nostrils and streamed over the 
dirty shirt below. Blood seemed to issue from even 
his eyes and ears. 

Jeffrey had been too paralyzed by this sudden bru¬ 
tality to do more than gasp, but as the cudgel was 



28 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


raised for the third time, he sprang forward and 
seized Harrison’s upraised hand. 

“Stop that, you damned cowardly piece of trash!” 
he cried shrilly. “Are you going to kill the nigger for 
stealing a chicken? Why don’t you try that on some¬ 
body your own size?” 

“Look a here, Preacher’s son, don’t you meddle 
with somethin’ that’s none of your business. I could 
take you in for interferrin’ with the majesty of the 
law,” replied the agent of that majesty with offended 
dignity. “What’s it to you if I do beat up a nigger or 
two? Niggers deserve it, and I won’t be interferred 
with when I’m a doin’ my duty. Git out of this. I’ll 
tell your paw on you.” 

“Ain’t you a great preacher’s son to be a cussin’ 
that way,” commented one of the men, to the intense 
amusement of the others, “I thought you was so much 
better than the rest of us, with all that private edgi- 
cation your paw’s been a givin’ you.” 

“Well, you know what the sayin’ is about preach¬ 
ers’ boys being the worst in the world,” added an¬ 
other, laughing loudly. 

“And I’ll thank you not to call me ‘trash’ again,” 
said the constable threateningly. “I’m just as good 
as you are. This is a free country and your folks that 
call themselves gentlemen have done more to hold 
this here country back than anybody else, always a 
coddlin’ their old niggers and makin’ ’em think they 
are better than common every day white folks. I’ll 
‘trash’ you if I ever hear of you talkin’ like that 
again, and what’s more I’m goin’ to let your paw 
know about that cussin’.” 

At this last remark he turned, and with—“Come on 
fellers, le’s get back to town with this precious nig¬ 
ger, before preacher Collingsworth’s pride decides to 
kiss him,”—started off through the pines. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


29 


“Don’t hit me no mo’, Boss,” pleaded the negro as he 
was led away. 

“Shut up, you son of -” 

Jeffrey had stood, pale and quivering with rage 
through these speeches, hardly hearing what was 
said, and so appalled at the sight of the pitiful, ash- 
gray, blood-streaked face, that, even had he willed it, 
he would have been unable to make reply. He was 
overcome with nausea and a feeling of faintness. 
When the men were gone, he fell upon the ground, 
and lay there trembling, violently sick. The world 
spun around for a time with a fearful roar, and then 
disappeared. 

When he regained consciousness it was quite dark. 
He was frightened. Why was he lying there in 
such a fashion? Gradually the ugly scene came back 
to him, and with it the realization that he had been 
away from home for a long time and that there 
would be excitement over his prolonged absence. He 
got to his feet and hastened, stumbling and falling, to 
get away from this hill of horrors, and to find the 
road in the valley beneath. It was not until he had 
reached the gate of the Manse that he remembered 
the propitiatory flowers he had gathered. He had 
dropped them at the cabin. 

Mrs. Collingsworth had been alarmed at the un¬ 
usual tardiness of her son, and was on the veranda at 
the first click of the gate latch. 

“Why, where have you been, Jeffrey?” she de¬ 
manded, as he came up the steps. “Supper was over 
an hour ago, and your father and I were terribly un¬ 
easy. He had to go over to Mr. Crockett’s right 
away after supper, so he doesn’t know how late you 
really are. What has been keeping you?” 

Jeffrey told his story, omitting the most gruesome 
details, while his mother led him to the dining room. 



30 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Why that poor little darky,” she exclaimed when 
he had done, “He’s nothing more than a child! Still,” 
she added, “I suppose the officers have to be rough, 
or there would be no end of stealing. But I don’t 
think it was a fit place for my boy to be, among those 
low men. You must keep away from such. I do be¬ 
lieve it has made you ill.” 

On his part, Jeffrey was thankful that this terrible 
day was done without an inquisitorial session with 
his father. 

He tossed about in his bed for hours, it seemed, 
unable to go to sleep. Why were such brutes as 
Harrison allowed to have office? They were not wel¬ 
comed in the homes of decent people, but they were 
allowed to administer their laws. No wonder the 
North had come down upon them and destroyed 
slavery. It was due to men like the constable. He 
recalled a still more repellent occurrence that he had 
witnessed in Georgia where his father had been asked 
to dedicate a church. They had visited for a week at 
the home of the local minister; and one day, when he 
had strayed away from the house, he had heard cries, 
and had followed a crowd out beyond the edge of the 
town to a tree where they were torturing a negro. 
They had said that he had committed rape, whatever 
that was, and that they felt “pretty sure” he was the 
guilty one—“It didn’t matter.” The poor wretch had 
been deliberately dismembered, and his parts were 
given out as souvenirs,—a finger here, and an ear 
there. As often as the man had fainted, he had been 
revived by cold water and whiskey. And when, at 
last, some of the crowd had begun shooting bullets 
into his body, others had complained that it had 
spoiled the sport. Before the man had lost conscious¬ 
ness they pressed white-hot irons against his feet, 
and then, as a grand finale, they had burned him to a 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


31 


cinder. Some of the “best people” of the community 
had been there in the mob, and afterwards he had 
heard them explain that the example was excellent,— 
“the northern nigger lovers must be shown,” and that 
“the pure native morality of the South was the only 
check the niggers had.” It had been a triumphant 
manifestation of the social conscience, and had seemed 
to yield both pleasure and satisfaction. Jeffrey 
distinctly recalled that he had been whipped for hav¬ 
ing witnessed this display of justice. He was always 
being whipped. Well, at any rate it was comforting 
that no such extreme outrages as the one he had seen 
in Georgia were permitted in Virginia. Only the 
white trash in Virginia would stoop to such things. 
But the white trash, and a stricken black boy’s face 
disturbed his dreams that night, and the morning 
light found his pillow drenched with tears. 

The next day Jeffrey’s father was interviewed by 
the insulted constable, and afterward, in the locked 
study Jeffrey was thrashed, supposedly for his pro¬ 
fanity, but really for having been the means of bring¬ 
ing Hoge Harrison to the minister’s veranda. 

“The very idea,” thought Mr. Collingsworth, “Of 
my son’s having caused such a person as that to set 
foot upon my door-step!” 


V 


A ND so he was to be rid of it all. He was going 
/ \ to college! Webb had been dismissed, and he 
“*■ was to have a fling at life. To be sure it was 
not as he had planned it, with farewells from the bus 
and at the station, followed by a solitary journey on 
the train and a personal interview with the great men 
of Wythe College to whom he had hoped to confide 
his desire for an independent course of study. His 
mother was to go along, install him in a dainty room, 
explain his temperament to the dean, and state John 
Collingsworth’s ambitions and fears to the men he 
had hoped to meet alone. Yet, in spite of these dis¬ 
advantages, he was escaping his father. He resolved 
never to go to church again. He had enough of that, 
having been compelled to attend some kind of service 
at least three times every Sunday, to say nothing of 
the mid-week prayer meeting where sentimental old 
ladies sighed over unctious hymns. No more narrow¬ 
mindedness, no more orthodoxy. College was a place 
of culture and the open mind. The fellows there 
would talk wisely of Spencer, Darwin, Emerson, and 
Henry George. Jeffrey didn’t know who Henry 
George was, but his father had said that he was 
wicked, and that placed him alongside Ingersoll, 
Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Karl Marx. The books 
of these men would be in the college library, and he 
would revel in them. He would read Uncle Tom’s 
Cabin too. Ah, that would make his father rage! He 
remembered that the Baylors had a copy which he 
had wanted to borrow one day when the minister and 
his family were there at dinner. His father had very 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


33 


civilly declined for him and had made apologies; but 
when they got back to the Manse there had been a 
scene. 

“Just the idea of your wanting a book by that 
black hearted hussy,” thundered Reverend Mr. Col¬ 
lingsworth. “Why, you make your father the laugh¬ 
ing stock of the town. Trash, Sir; worse than trash!” 

Webb had not altogether approved of Mr. Collings¬ 
worth’s strictures upon his pupil’s curiosity and had, 
because of this, been the more lenient in permitting 
Jeffrey to read what appealed to him. True, his 
meagre collection of books were in Latin and Greek, 
but that made them perfectly respectable. He had 
allowed the boy to read the satires of Juvenal, some 
of Martial’s epigrams, and had made no criticism 
when his copy of Aristophanes had disappeared for 
some weeks during which Jeffrey had advanced re¬ 
markably in his knowledge of Greek. Jeffrey had not 
been altogether grateful for these attentions. He had 
felt that Webb was too strict, too careful of declen¬ 
sions, to either derive or impart the joy with which 
the best of the classics fairly reeked. He was, to 
Jeffrey, a dry, pedantic, prematurely aged little man 
who looked out over gold-rimmed glasses upon a be¬ 
wildering world, and saw nothing but a dreadful dis¬ 
regard of Latin grammar. He was glad to be rid of 
Webb. 

Then he recalled Mrs. Surry, Webb’s predecessor, 
with even greater dislike. She had been abominably 
fat, and there were gray bristles on her chin. He had 
liked her well enough until she had told his mother, 
with extreme gravity, of the “lies he made up.” He 
chuckled at the remembrance. He had tried to enter¬ 
tain Mrs. Surry with one of his day dreams about a 
wonderful rooster- 

-“and Mother took it on the train when we were 




34 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


going to Roanoke, and as we were crossing New 
River, Mother was looking out of the window, and 
her bonnet fell off, and would have dropped into the 
water, but the rooster flew out and down, and, just 
before the hat struck the water, he caught it in his 
bill, and then flew back and came in at the same 
window.” 

“If you don’t whip him, I’m afraid he’ll be a con¬ 
firmed liar,” Mrs. Surry had insisted. And then his 
father had whipped him. 

In revenge he had invented a device with strings 
and secret pulleys whereby, from his upper chamber 
he could drag a rough stone beneath the carpet under 
Mrs. Surry’s bed. It made a fearful crawling sound; 
and at night, when the lights were all out, he had 
slowly pulled the strings and had listened with glee 
to his teacher’s screams for help. The whole family 
were aroused. Then the strings were discovered and 
he had been thrashed once more. Mrs. Surry had told 
him that he would never amount to anything, and 
that he would live to disgrace his parents. How he 
had hated her! 

And yet these last days at the Manse were not 
altogether without some tender memories. Jeffrey 
sometimes wandered about the house, forgetful of the 
galling restraints, touching certain old bits of house¬ 
hold furniture,—an old piece of Sheraton or the high¬ 
boy in his mother’s room, or the sombre clock— 
things that had somehow afforded a release from his 
actual present, and had carried him back to the old 
days of which his mother or his grandfather had 
spoken with lingering wistfulness; or had, by some 
other twist of fancy, enabled him to picture to him¬ 
self a world of beauty where he, too, had a will of 
his own. He caressed with peculiar fondness the old 
folio of North’s Plutarch which had yielded pleasure 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


35 


to at least three generations of his family before him; 
and his eyes lingered upon a faded spot beneath the 
piano where, unobserved, he had followed the adven¬ 
tures of Gulliver and Crusoe, and had trembled over 
Christian’s encounter with Apollyon. 

He strolled out into the fields on the last day and 
bade an almost melodramatic farewell to the brows¬ 
ing cattle, and the little brook and the old spring that 
gushed its fount of cold water from under the hill. 
Presently he came around through the orchard where 
the Milam apples and Northern Spies were on the 
ground, and where the Russets and Pippins hung, 
awaiting a later maturity. These called to mind, once 
more, very precious memories of days with his grand¬ 
father, with whom he had walked beneath these very 
trees, and whom he had assisted at the solemn ritual 
of transforming bruised apples into rich brown cider. 
Below the orchard was the old barn, the leaning 
granary, and three wedge-shaped corn cribs where he 
remembered having slaughtered a multitude of mice. 
Back under the barn shed, too, was an old horse¬ 
power threshing machine, long in disuse, while in the 
granary was an ancient, thong-bound flail; treasured 
from the time when the first Collingsworth had come 
over from England to Virginia. All these things did 
the boy touch with eyes sometimes filled with tears; 
and when, at last, he hugged the soft warm nose of 
his favorite mare, his mother’s own jet-black Della, 
now nearing the age of thirty, he sobbed outright. 
Why couldn’t things be so arranged that when a sit¬ 
uation was unpleasant, it could be unqualifiedly so? 
As it was he was only too glad to be rid of his 
father’s all-seeing and yet unseeing eye, the irksome¬ 
ness of a too punctilious attendance upon a form of 
worship alien to his nature, an unnatural relation to 
his fellows, and a regime of mental exercises that 


i 


36 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


seemed to thwart every hunger of his soul. On the 
other hand there was his mother, personless, and yet 
ineffably sweet and kind; there were the inanimate 
things that had a way, from one cause or another, of 
attaching themselves to one’s innermost being so that 
they were very personal and alive; there were the 
horses, clean, and having a kind of aristocratic mien 
that allied them to a higher order,—they were friends, 
as faithful in their way as the darkies were in theirs. 
So divided were his feelings that, even on the thres¬ 
hold of his emancipation, he was cast down by the 
consciousness of a dear kind of enthralldom. 

Later in the afternoon, Jeffrey was permitted to 
take a last walk about the town, a privilege hitherto 
withheld save when he could be suitably accompanied, 
but granted now that he was on the eve of entering 
college. Oldbern was a village of but one street— 
High Street, a name brought from the town in 
Devonshire where the Collingsworths had their ori¬ 
gin, and distinguishing it from the neighboring rivals, 
the chief thoroughfare of which, in every case, was 
“Main Street.” Here were Jordan’s feed and fuel 
store, Miller’s hardware store, Crockett’s drug store 
and pharmacy, the post office, the great red brick 
court house, surrounded by elms, and bearing over 
its fluted marble columns the legend—“Justice and 
Equity.” Opposite this imposing edifice stood the 
one hotel of which the town boasted, Peck’s Tavern. 
A little further on to the north were two grocery 
stores, the new Busy Bee Dry Goods Emporium, 
John’s barber shop, and Mahone’s blacksmith shop. 
Beside the latter was a place where customers, wait¬ 
ing for their horses to be shod, might throw horse¬ 
shoes with the village loafers. Throwing horseshoes 
was about the only week-day recreation the town 
afforded. Most towns in that section had a railway 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


37 


station where the populace could gather and get some 
touch with the outside world, but Major Collings¬ 
worth and old Dutchy Peck had, for very different 
reasons, combined to prevent the railroad from cross¬ 
ing their property. Peck had stoutly maintained that 
steam trains were of the Devil; and Collingsworth 
believed that they w r ere dirty and would bring unde¬ 
sirable people and unwholesome conditions in their 
wake. That w^as before the war, and now the road 
passed by three miles to the south, where, at a flag 
station, Oldbern’s citizens, conveyed thither by omni¬ 
bus, might condescend to employ modern transporta¬ 
tion. 

At one end of High Street was the First Methodist 
church, a yellow octagonal building, covered with 
gingerbread scroll ornaments; at the opposite end was 
the Presbyterian church, a prim and precise structure 
with straight lines of brick and white mortar against 
which green blinds stared out like eyes. Jeffrey ap¬ 
proached the church yard gate and picked his way 
among the tombs to a plot, well in the back, where 
his own people lay. It was a favorite spot to which 
the boy loved to steal away, when he could, and medi¬ 
tate upon mortality. All his youthful sentimentalism 
was called forth here, and he was fond of making be¬ 
lieve that he was being buried, and of picturing the 
grief of his father as he followed the casket to the 
grave. But when he thought of his mother’s tears it 
was different, and he wept with her over his own loss. 
He wept also as he stood at the tall shaft of his lately 
buried grandfather and read— 

“sacred to the memory 

OF 

MAJOR CROCKETT COLLINGSWORTH JR.” 

At the foot of this grave he would ponder, it seemed, 
for hours, and revel in the pleasures of sweet torture. 


38 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Today he went from one grave to another, touching 
with reverence, now the tomb of an uncle who had 
been killed in battle, or of an aunt who had told him 
beautiful stories; now a great-grandfather, or some 
distant kinsman concerning whom family memories 
had been handed down for generations. No doubt, in 
some other world, they were expecting much of him. 
Well, now that he was going out into the world, he 
would not disappoint their hopes, he would show 
them. 

As if in token of this resolution Jeffrey plucked 
some roses from a bush nearby and, careful not to 
overlook a single departed relative, sentimentally laid 
a flower on the head of every grave. After one last 
lingering look, he went out of the little gate and very 
solemnly took a back path past the Episcopal Church 
and around by the public school at which he had, on 
days before, been wont to cast many an envious 
glance. Now he looked at the thing with scorn. The 
boys who had played about this place had often 
jeered at him for being a “sissy, too good for a com'- 
mon school/’ and he had unwisely replied on one 
such occasion that if he had his own way he would 
go to common school too, but that his father con¬ 
sidered association with other boys very bad, so 
that he was kept at home with a tutor. This reply 
was enlarged and annotated at the several homes in 
the village, and the days that followed had found 
Jeffrey more of an outcast than ever. Instead of his 
helplessness making appeal to public sympathy, his 
revelation of parental ideals visited upon him a rage 
that was intended for his senior. But today they were 
more respectful. He met Lee Randolph coming down 
the path. 

“Hello, Jeffrey, going to college pretty soon?” 
queried Randolph. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


39 


“Tomorrow,” he replied, with an attempt at supe¬ 
rior dignity. 

“Why don’t you go to Charlottesville where you 
can have some fun? The University is a real school,” 
taunted Randolph, bent on dimming the glory of 
Jeffrey’s departure. 

“Wythe was good enough for my grandad and I 
suppose it will do for me,” returned Jeffrey with some 
feeling. 

“Well, good luck,” answered the other, offering his 
hand with a somewhat supercilious smile. 

At the supper table, after grace had been said, John 
Collingsworth took up the twofold task of slicing ham 
and giving counsel to his son. 

“Now, Jeffrey, you are very young to go away from 
home, but you have been given advantages that should 
prepare you for everything you may have to meet. 
However, I have noticed that you have some very 
weak tendencies to overcome. You seem to have a 
hankering to meet the wrong people and to embrace 
erroneous notions. I have tried to protect you from 
the things that spoil a boy, but I am afraid that you 
are not very grateful and that you haven’t profited 
very much by it. You incline after new theories that 
point toward godlessness; I suppose you think it is 
smart. And then you are not frank with your father. 
You go off and discuss these things with Rhoda and 
Tom and the other niggers, as though they were 
your equals. You talked to them more than you did 
to Mr. Webb, and to everybody more than to me. 
Well, you’ll be sorry some day; and now that you 
are going to college you will be thrown on your own 
responsibility with nobody that loves you enough to 
protect you from your mistakes.” 

The minister gave emphasis to his homily by vigor¬ 
ous use of the carving knife, and Jeffrey could not 


.40 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


help noticing, for all the importance of a last supper, 
that drops of sweat glistened on his father’s bald 
head, catching the light from the chandelier above. 
He wondered what his father meant by his lack of 
frankness, and remembered with a shudder the occa¬ 
sions when he had spoken his mind only to be 
thrashed. His father had paused at the entrance of 
Rhoda, who was fetching a plate of hot biscuits. He 
waited, with an attempt at looking benign, until the 
old darky had left the room. Family advice was not 
to be administered in the presence of negro servants. 

“In the first place, Jeffrey,” the father resumed, 
“you must pay better attention, and not look as 
though you were thinking of something else when 
people are addressing you; it is not polite; and polite¬ 
ness, promptitude and propriety must become a sec¬ 
ond nature to you. Then secondly, you are too eager 
to make friends. Beware of people who make ad¬ 
vances. Stay in your room when you have left the 
class, and when you want exercise walk out some¬ 
where back of the college, alone, or with some of your 
professors. Cultivate people who have power, posi¬ 
tion, and piety. After we have finished supper we will 
go into my study and discuss some things that are 
of even more importance, but—ah—er—, which can¬ 
not be spoken of before ladies.” Mr. Collingsworth 
looked meaningly at his wife whose sensitive mouth 
twitched nervously, and who was obviously embar¬ 
rassed by the very suggestion of the “important 
things.” 

“Won’t you have another piece of lemon pie, Jeffrey 
dear?” asked his mother, by way of making her son 
more comfortable and of relieving the tensity of the 
situation, “I had it made especially for you. It will 
be the last chance you will have to eat one of Rhoda’s 
pies for a very long time I’m afraid.” 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


41 


“Lemon pie is very dangerous. I have known men 
to die of indigestion after eating it,” interrupted Mr. 
Collingsworth, passing his own plate for a second 
helping. Then, after seeing that there was quite 
enough for both, he added, “still, I suppose one extra 
piece on rare occasions won’t hurt the boy.” 

When at last father and son arose from the table, 
excused themselves to Mrs. Collingsworth, and turned 
toward the study, Jeffrey was atremble with excite¬ 
ment. His father had, for a long time, hinted that 
some day he would speak to him about “certain 
things,” and the boy had, at last, through furtive 
reading, divined that these “things” meant the awful 
mysteries of sex and their attendant dangers. The 
last time this promise was made was when he had 
asked his father concerning the presence of a visiting 
stallion, and had witnessed a quite visible embarrass¬ 
ment and annoyance take possession of his parent. 
The first time was when he had announced, before a 
company of ministers and their wives, that he had 
just helped an old hen lay an egg. Sex was evidently 
a terrible thing and always attended with displeasure. 
This attitude, at any rate, had made it thrilling. He 
was afraid. 

His father locked the door and indicated by a sweep 
of his arm that he might be seated in the big wing 
chair. Jeffrey felt rather weak and seemed suddenly 
lost in the depths as he sank back, seeking protection 
for his burning face in the soft upholstry of the chair. 
His father seemed no less overcome by the impor¬ 
tance of the forthcoming revelation, and as he felt 
along the mantle among innumerable pipes, Jeffrey 
saw that his hand shook. It seemed ages before the 
man could choose a pipe; it took an eternity to fill it 
with the moist tobacco, and to light the taper taken 
from the blue cornucopia by the fire board. And then 


42 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the very tobacco seemed to blush with mortification 
at being privy to such a conference. At last the minis¬ 
ter, usually so ready of speech, began: 

“My son, I am not uneasy about your studies, for 
you are interested in books, and while you neglect 
mathematics and are not over proficient in Latin and 
Greek, I think you will get through your course with¬ 
out difficulty. Wythe is an excellent school, where the 
traditions of the family, already established, will help 
you to resist temptation. But there are things, even 
at the best colleges, of which I disapprove and am 
afraid—wine and women. If I have displeased you by 
depriving you of the company of young people of 
your own age, it has been for the reason that young 
people, especially young boys, tell questionable stories 
—dirty stories. I have protected you from this, for 
the reason that it leads inevitably to vice. So, when 
you hear a boy begin such a tale, leave the room at 
once. There are many mysteries in nature of which 
you are ignorant, but,—ah—you’re old enough now to 
know these things, and you will find them explained 
quite satisfactorily when you come to study biology.” 

The minister seemed anxious to put an end to the in¬ 
terview. He puffed nervously at his pipe. “Well, 
now,” he resumed, “I have to arrange a great many 
things for your mother to take with her in the morn¬ 
ing and must write some letters to the authorities at 

Wythe, so I will sum up the whole matter in this”- 

Here Mr. Collingsworth walked over to the door and 
listened for a moment, then, advancing toward the 
fireplace, and lowering his voice, he gave utterance to 
the secret of life:— 

“Jeffrey, beware of bad women, and,—and keep 
your bowels open.” 

The minister gave a great sigh of relief. So did 
Jeffrey, for all his disappointment. But after he had 



CABLES DF COBWEB 


43 


kissed his father goodnight and turned toward the 
door, his sharp eye was caught by the look of an un¬ 
familiar book in the high walnut case. He hastily 
read the title as he turned the knob of the door— 
“Boccaccio. The Decameron,”—some theologian, he 
supposed. 


VI 


L ucy Collingsworth and her son arrived 

at Wythe station after a five hours’ journey. 
All along the way she had pointed out the fine 
old houses set back from country lanes amid branch¬ 
ing trees and surrounded, invariably, by white fences, 
and, not infrequently, retaining, for a background, a 
row of log-cabins, survivals from the days of slavery. 
With the history of many of these homes she was 
well acquainted, and loved to relate how Colonel This 
or That had done something to Major Other. In this 
manner she strove to entertain the boy and to forget 
that she was giving him up to the guidance of other 
hands. He was her only son and chief companion; 
her husband being given to his sermon-making and 
pastoral duties, and living a life apart from her own 
homely interests. Secretly she had often wished that 
John Collingsworth would live even more apart, and 
leave to her the management of Jeffrey. For, in her 
way, she felt that she understood the whimsicalities 
of the lad, and that the too secluded life imposed by 
his father would some day lead to sorrowful results. 
But she had feared her husband, sensed his jealousy 
of the boy’s confidence, and, hence, had been almost 
furtive in her attempts to be companionable with him. 

On his part, Jeffrey could not altogether pay strict 
attention to mere scenery and reminiscences, however 
delightful. The day was too important. He could 
overhear snatches of what he imagined was college 
talk coming from two sun-burned youths from across 
the aisle. Something about “old Williams math.”, and 
“Doc Parker’s Greek exams,” and “Stink one.” It 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


45 


was a little puzzling and undignified, he thought. He 
had heard of these worthies heretofore, but always 
they had been spoken of in some awe. Surely, how¬ 
ever, Doctor Fitzpatrick of the biological department 
and Professor Wright of economics, and Freeman of 
psychology, would escape these familiarities. What 
men they were sure to be!—with grave Johnsonian 
personalities, rolling Latinized phrases beneath their 
tongues while explaining the recondite and the mys¬ 
terious to an awakening and eager mind. He felt sure 
that they would not, nay, could not, descend to fuss 
about their meals, nor gossip about salaries. They 
would be above party politics, or sectarian prejudices, 
or race hatreds; they would be possessed of clearly 
outlined and rich individualities, and yet be impersonal 
in judgment. 

The train was slowing down, and the brakeman 
came to announce, with rasping voice — “Wythe 
College”. How could a man make such an announce¬ 
ment in such a tone of voice? 

There was not a town of Wythe, just a tiny pale 
green station, a still tinier post office,—the master 
of which kept a stock of canned goods, confectionery, 
tobacco, and stationery for the benefit of the students, 
—a Confederate cemetery, back on the hill; and the 
college. The buildings of the latter stood off a little 
way from the railroad, on rising ground, well forested 
and carpeted with grass. Red brick, white columns, 
ivy on the walls studded by small, square, white, 
rimmed window panes, Wythe College was a reduced 
replica architecturally, of the State University, planned 
by Jefferson. 

Jeffrey was quick to notice that none of the other 
fellows who were alighting from the train had brought 
their mothers with them, and this knowledge gave 
him a sense of an unfair start, and of the possibilities 


46 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


of future jests. This embarrassment was offset to a 
degree when Dean Richmond came forward to greet 
his mother, and to lead them to his own home in 
Faculty Row. Richmond extended a thin hand to 
the boy- 

“Glad to meet you Mr. Collingsworth.” 

A man at last! Jeffrey was so overpowered by 
the new title that he was totally unable to be critical 
of the gaunt, gray-and-red, chin-whiskered dignitary 
who, with the aid of a darky servant, was leading 
them into the campus. “I’m a man,” he kept repeating 
to himself. 



VII 


I T was not without a pang that, three days later, 
he saw his mother, through dimmed eyes, wave 
a farewell caress to him from the departing local 
train. His throat seemed dry and parched, nor did 
the water from the college spring entirely quench his 
thirst when he stopped there on his way back to the 
dormitory. In the room once more he saw everywhere 
the evidences of his mother’s care,—her picture on the 
table by his bed, an old print of one of Constable’s 
landscapes on the wall, the knitted bed-slippers, and 
some quilted cushions on the low couch. He comforted 
himself, however, with the thought that he was, at 
last, a free man. The room was his kingdom. He 
was glad that he was in the old building where his 
grandfather, two great-uncles, and heavens knows how 
many ordinary relatives had been housed. The mantel 
was grotesquely carved with initials and the beams 
showed blackened designs wrought by a heated poker. 
The floor was worn by the tread of many footsteps, 
and, near the thick oaken door, was a great black 
blood stain, ineffaceable since the days when the college 
buildings had been used by Confederate soldiers for 
a hospital. 

“Where, now,” he wondered, “was that particular 
patriot who had left so indelible an evidence of his 
loyalty? To what sort of Heaven did such men go? 
Had he been a poet, or just an insensible lout, driven 
by necessity into a conflict he had not comprehended? 
Oh well, either way, the man lost, and left nothing 
more intelligible than an ugly stain.” Jeffrey turned 
to his books. 



48 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Life for the following weeks consisted of hasty in¬ 
troductions ; the meeting of instructors; getting 
assignments of Anacreon, Homer, ancient history, 
biology; of being examined at the gymnasium; of being 
inspected by the members of the rival literary societies; 
and, finally, he joined the Euripidean, under the pretext 
that it had the more stately hall, but really because 
his grandfather had founded it and had given it the 
motto— 

’AvaqpcuQSTOV ecrri Jtai5eta Pgoxoig. 

It was not long, however, before Jeffrey became 
conscious that he was making very little headway 
among the students. Professors took a liking to him, 
from the outset, because of a wide reading which 
showed itself at once in recitation; but when the boy 
went out of the lecture room attempting to continue 
the discussion of some problem in literature or conduct, 
the distaste of his fellows became evident. He could 
take no part in their group-talk about baseball, football, 
girls, and college pranks, for the very simple reason 
that he had not lived, before, in a group of equals. 
He spoke as one from another world, and they deemed 
it an affectation. Everywhere, then, it was the same 
-he was damned to solitude where he wanted com¬ 
panionship ; damned to fellowship with the mob when 
he yearned to be alone. Back home his footsteps 
had been dogged by the undesirable; here he was 
undesired. At the dinner table, night after night, he 
overheard yarns about stealing apples, carrying away 
the chapel bell, putting bewildered cows in the lecture 
rooms, and frightening the janitor out of his wits 
with papier-mache ghosts and dangling skeletons. The 
perpetrators of these conventional jokes were heroes. 
Daring was a sure road to popularity. There was his 
key! He would become a devil that he might hear 
the sweet music of the acclaim of comrades. 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


49 


One evening, when these acts of heroism were being 
discussed at dinner, he resolved to make himself one 
of them. Turning to the man at his right he inquired, 
with an attempt to approximate the manner of a real 
fellow—“Did I hear somebody say apples? I wish 
you would lead me to an orchard, Whittaker, I’d like 
to show you how to swipe enough for the whole 
Dorm\” 

Whittaker’s surprise at the source of this remark 
was evident for but a moment, then, with a wink at 
the others,- 

“Very good, Collingsworth, I didn’t’ know that you 
went in for such things; but if you will bring your 
pillow cases and meet me at the back of the chapel by, 
say, ten o’clock we will go and get some of Judge 
Walker’s Virginia Beauties.” 

He did not explain a thing that was well known to 
his friends—that Judge Walker kept a guard, armed 
with a shotgun and assisted by a bull-terrier, at this 
season, in anticipation of just such raids. What he had 
announced was a signal to the others to watch for 
some rare fun. The Freshman was to have a fright 
and, possibly, a load of bird shot for his ambition— 
an old game with well known results. 

Several minutes before the hour of appointment, 
Jeffrey was at the chapel door, two pillow cases 
stuffed in his pockets, and, when joined by Whittaker, 
he was guided out back of the college farm, through a 
grove of oaks, and up to the high worm fence sur¬ 
rounding the plantation of one of Virginia’s foremost 
supreme judges. The scurrying white clouds that 
now and again dimmed the light of the moon served 
only to make the night full of spectres. 

“Now,” whispered Whittaker, “you will have to 
watch out for the dog. Look!” 

Peering through the rails, Jeffrey made out, far 



50 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


down the row of trees just opposite, the figure of a 
man leaning against a wagon. There was the inter¬ 
mittent glow of a cigar, and then a cough. The boy 
trembled, but the remembrance of his object was tonic. 

“Let me go around to the other end,” he whispered. 
You stay here, Whittaker, to help me get the cases 
over when I come back.” His companion’s grin of 
satisfaction at this turn of affairs was hid by a shadow. 

Cautiously, trying each rail for a squeak, the boy 
climbed over the fence, slid to the ground on all fours, 
and then, by a serpentine movement of his body in the 
tall orchard grass, he managed to make the first tree. 
He felt about him for apples. There were none. He 
moved closer to the trunk and there, to his great sur¬ 
prise, discovered two big sacks of apples filled and 
sewn up that very day for shipment. Walker’s Vir¬ 
ginia Beauties brought fancy prices in New York. 
Fortune never smiled more beneficently nor, moralists 
to the contrary, on a better cause. The next task was 
to turn the sack over on his back without making a 
sound, and to return to the fence. It was slower work, 
this impeded return, but, after what seemed hours, it 
was done. Slowly he rose to his feet and, after well 
nigh breaking his bones, balanced the heavy burden 
on the top rail, where his companion steadied it until 
he could regain the safer ground. Ten disappointed 
upperclassmen rose from their hiding places in the 
bushes beyond, and stole rapidly back through the 
woods to the college. 

“What was that noise?” whispered Collingsworth. 

“Nothing but squirrels, I reckon,” assured the other. 

Arriving at the dormitory they found ten fellows 
grouped about the door. To all appearances, they had 
been there since dinner and were wholly unaware of 
this thieving mission. 

“Hello, what’s this?” inquired one. “Oh, it’s Whit- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


51 


taker and, let’s see,” striking a match, “and Collings¬ 
worth. Where have you birds been?” Collingsworth 
was a member of the gang. 

Thereafter he busied himself not with Thucydides 
nor Ovid, but with the art of making himself a hero. 
Did blackboards have to be greased, professors’ horses 
painted green, or their front doors shattered by giant 
crackers, or tombstones moved to the chapel to bear 
later, in letters of red, the name of some unfortunate 
instructor,—in fact, did any deed, requiring foolhardy 
risk of limb, and meriting expulsion, appeal to the 
fellows, Jeffrey was elected captain. Nor was it cour¬ 
age that prompted these essays in boldness; it was 
the yearning for social approbation. Had it not been 
for his former tutor’s extravagant letters of praise, the 
status of his forebears and his own serious counten¬ 
ance, which bore a certain air of thoughtfulness, he 
might have been suspected; with these, and a secret¬ 
iveness fostered by his father’s whip, he escaped un¬ 
scathed. Fie even escaped hazing. 

By the time of the Christmas holidays he had friends 
enough: Whittaker and Meadows, Painter and Pope, 
—all the wild set, flocked about his room, eager to 
hear plans for some new deviltry. It was quite won¬ 
derful at first. There were casino, and seven up, and 
poker—the latter seeming to reek with evil—, midnight 
feasts on stolen chicken, and, as a climax to it all, no 
end of cheap beer smuggled into the halls in innocent 
suitcases. A skull and cross-bones were added to the 
walls’ fantastic scars, and the same horrid figures 
stood out on the bowl of Jeffrey’s meerschaum pipe. 
The primness that hitherto had marked him for an 
“apron-stringer” had given way to an indefinable 
swagger. 

And yet he was not content. Association was not 
fellowship. His new friends could not understand, for 


52 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


one thing, his liking to read, when he got into bed, 
Lycidas or Kubla Khan, or some strange and frettied 
passage from the Urn Burial. They read nothing 
more than their assignments, unless, perhaps, it should 
be a song from Whitcomb Riley or a story by Mary 
Johnson. This business of liking style was effeminate. 
Men did not do such things. They grew up to smoke, 
drink whiskey, argue about religion, politics, niggers, 
horses, and women’s legs. Not ladies’ legs, gentle 
reader; for the very mention of a particular lady’s 
legs, in that section, would start a revolution and 
bring rapid annihilation upon the scoundrel who sug¬ 
gested such a thing. Ladies had “limbs” in the South. 
A woman’s leg, however, was in the same category 
with horses and hounds. One would say:—“I like ’em 
slim, and covered with fine down like that on a goose’s 
body; they are gamer.” To which another:—“not for 
mine. I’m for the big, fat, smooth variety; white flesh 
and dimples, invisible to the eye, but sensible to the 
touch.” 

Jeffrey had not yet felt a woman’s leg and had no 
opinions. These fests of talk were fascinating enough, 
at first, but they tended to grow monotonous. There 
was in them neither variety nor originality—the men 
had acute Priapic imaginations, that was all. A good 
dirty joke was wonderfully clarifying, but very rare. 
Even the worst of this conversation was, however, 
more agreeable than the constant twaddle about Provi¬ 
dence and conscience which he had heard at home. 
Still, this was not what he fancied to hear at college. 
Weren’t people interested in beauty, or in the sources 
of things, outside of class rooms and text books? 

Some days he would escape from this and lose him¬ 
self in the dark alcoves of the musty, low-ceilinged, 
old library, whose shelves were filled, for the most 
part, with the works of Calvin and cast-offs from the 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


53 


bookcases of deceased clergymen. But he did find 
Buckle’s History of Civilization in England, Grant Allen’s 
Evolution of the Idea of God, and a set of Herbert Spen¬ 
cer. First Principles was a text book of revolt. To 
Jeffrey it became a Bible. Not that he could under¬ 
stand it all; but he did come to feel, because of it, 
that the rule-of-thumb explanations of Creation, and 
the like, were too obviously childlike and were, them¬ 
selves, but outgrowths of a process, and subject to 
universal relativity. Abandoning in a moment creeds 
that he had hated, it seemed to him, from birth, he 
seized upon a new one with avidity. The famous 
definition of evolution as an “integration of matter 
and a concomitant dissipation of motion,” took the 
place of the old formula “I believe in God the Father.” 
It was so much more simple! 

Here, then, was work for him. He would enlighten 
these superstitious dolts, make them see the implica¬ 
tions of the things that old Fitzpatrick was covertly 
teaching, and thus overthrow the faith of his fathers. 
Science demanded it. 

Very cautiously he mentioned some of these ideas 
to Clyde Pope. The latter, having no particular pre¬ 
judices, was not exactly shocked, but a little uneasy 
when he replied, “If you don’t look out you’ll be an 
atheist like Bob Ingersoll and Tom Paine. Old Dad 
Markham reads such stuff.” 

Markham was the postmaster and tobacconist, and 
it wasn’t very long before Jeffrey made some pretext 
to inquire of him whether these books were obtain¬ 
able. They would add to his mental ammunition. 

“Aggzactly,” assented the old man, “you can borry 
my Age of Reason and Ingersoll’s Lectures. Good readin’ 
in them, son. Mor’n you’ll get out a lot of them text 
books.” And he dug out from beneath a cheese box 


54 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


two dirty, paper-covered volumes. “Be sure to fetch 
’em back,” he added. 

The reading of Ingersoll’s rhetorical diatribes and 
humorous conceits requires but a willing mind and 
needs little background. Paine, on the other hand, 
affects more of a pedantic vein and fortifies his reason¬ 
ing by countless references to Scripture, so that Jef¬ 
frey came to be very grateful for the long hours spent 
in committing to memory passages of scripture from 
the Testaments, and for the familiarity, thus acquired, 
with the histories as well as the arrangement of the 
King James Bible. Paine pointed out contradiction 
after contradiction in the accounts of the ancient gos¬ 
pellers, revealing discrepancies in those beautiful and 
simple legends, and making the miracles seem but the 
play of stage charlatans. To a boy so long compelled 
to make these golden fairy stories a test of memory, a 
source of exact history, and a manual of logic; so long 
forced to hear the unparalleled poetry of Isaiah and 
Kolheleth and John warped and twisted for texts to 
confound Catholics and Campbellites and infidels, the 
discovery of these inexactitudes was a joy. He giggled 
over subtle inuendoes reflecting sadly upon the virtue 
of Our Lady, smiled when he saw that there were two 
unrelated accounts of creation, laughed at the con¬ 
fusions over the crucifixion, and became ecstatic when 
he beheld the complete overthrow of the legends of 
the resurrection. Then his mind leaped to a dreadful 
conclusion, with that discerning power that has ever 
characterized truth-seeking humanity: The fishermen 
of Galilee fail to agree, therefore God is all rot! It 
was horrible that writers should make such blunders. 
Why, Matthew and Mark were as inconsistent in their 
histories as rival editors are in the account of an elec¬ 
tion; or as the consecutive messages of a president of 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


55 


the United States. Well, at any rate, all preachers 
were bounders. 

A few days of quiet reflection brought about a tem¬ 
per of greater moderation. It was not enough to flaunt 
the errors of Ezekiel, nor the mistakes of Moses; if he 
would make headway in this needful propaganda, he 
must, in the main, attack the fundamentals. Spencer 
—there, after all, was the man to make popular. He 
would return to his original plan and form a Spencer 
club. He had a place now, and would use his reputa¬ 
tion for demonic courage for some cultural purpose. 

And then he met Yost. Edward Yost was a Sopho¬ 
more, and behaved with\ becoming condescension to 
underlings, but, as a leader of the Euripidean debaters, 
he lost no opportunity for cultivating acquaintance for 
one who, on his first try-out, assembled his material 
with the dexterity displayed by young Collingsworth. 
The two began taking walks together in the evenings 
after supper. Yost’s father was a prominent attorney 
in Norfolk, and he looked with disapproval upon the 
entrance of a steadily increasing number of “white 
trash” into Virginia colleges. This being his second 
year he was in a position to know. He confided to 
Jeffrey:— 

“I’m simply amazed that the college doesn’t do 
something about it. Last year there were about a 
dozen of these riff-raff here, but we scared two of 
them nearly to death, beat up a third, and let the rest 
know where they belonged. They never got an invi¬ 
tation from either of the societies. But this year there 
are fully twenty of them, coming from Scott, Carroll, 
and the mining towns of West Virginia. The damned 
impudence of it. Why, if it keeps up, there won’t be 
any social life left here. Some of them are rich as the 
devil, too; squatted on poor land and shot squirrels 
and wild turkeys for a living until the Yankees came 


56 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


down and opened the coal mines. Then they suddenly 
got to be millionaires. Well, why don’t they go to the 
infernal Yankee colleges where money is everything 
and family nothing? They certainly wouldn’t get a 
chance here if I had anything to say about it.” 

“Nor I,” agreed Collingsworth, seeing an opportun¬ 
ity to press a point,—“These louts come here in their 
jeans breeches, and yarn socks, and squirt tobacco 
juice all over the class room floors until it is sickening. 
But that isn’t my chief objection to them. The poor 
white trash have taken over the religion of the niggers, 
until they out-hell hell. The more they increase, the 
more will the South’s reputation for ignorance spread. 
They are as ignorant and as superstitious as the worst 
of the darkies, and have none of their virtues. Negro 
religion is at least amusing, and I do love to hear them 
sing ‘Roll Jordan Roll,’ and ‘Hell is Deep.’ They have 
something which gives you the creeps, and yet satisfies 
your ear. There is real passion there. But just go to 
the meetings of these mountain Methodists and hear 
them shout and rend each others’ clothes! They don’t 
keep time in their shouting the way the niggers do; 
even at that they make discords; while to hear them 
sing ‘A-way-over-in-the-Promus’ La-and,’ and ‘I hope 
one day we’ll all git thar’—is really revolting. And 
superstitious! Why they are afraid of black cats, 
and thirteen, and Friday, and put salt under the sick¬ 
bed to drive away devils. And they swallow the Bible 
whole, and yet can’t read it, half of them. Even their 
preachers can barely read it. I think we ought to 
keep them out of our colleges; but there should be 
separate institutions to teach them science. If they 
would quit depending upon God, and learn how to 
cultivate their red clay, the whole country would be 
better. The preachers have the poor devils under 
their thumbs,” he concluded. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


57 


“I don’t quite agree with you,” answered Yost, “not 
that I have any use for the preachers or the Bible 
either, but if you take religion away from these 
Mountain whites, no woman in this region would be 
safe. They would commit as much rape as the nig¬ 
gers.” 

“But the niggers are over-religious and still commit 
rape,” continued Jeffrey “In fact, rape and religion 
seem to go together pretty well; both are mental 
cyclones, and while one violates the body, the other 
deflowers the mind.” 

“Yes, that sounds very well, Collingsworth,” 
laughed the other, “but these common folk have to be 
kept down where they belong, and religion does it; at 
least their kind of Christian religion does it. This 
humility stuff does a lot of good, and we ought to 
patronize it. That’s what my governor says, and he’s 
got a pretty long head. Christianity has its uses, and 
the main one is the ability to make people contented 
with their lot. That’s why Constantine chose it out 
of a half-a-dozen others. He didn’t need a gentleman’s 
religion; there were plenty of them floating around 
over the Roman Empire, perfectly helpless. He had a 
problem of keeping slaves from revolt. If you and I 
had been alive and around Jerusalem when Christi¬ 
anity started, we wouldn’t have listened to an ignorant 
street preacher. We would have gone to the Temple 
with the respectable folk, or, if we didn’t happen to 
have been Jews, would have paid tribute to Pallas 
Athene. We would have gravely given assent to the 
crucifixion of that same street soap-boxer, and would 
have considered ourselves the better patriots for it. 
And we would have been right. But we would have 
been wrong, too, for the persecution of a thing always 
increases it, and if the Romans had tolerated the var¬ 
mints, they would have died out, just as the Populists 


58 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


are dying out here. So we’ve got to tolerate the re¬ 
ligion of the poor whites; but we don’t have to live 
with them, and we ought not to have them here at 
college. They’re better off ignorant. Without learn¬ 
ing they make, at least, reliable hired-help; with it 
they’re not only worthless but miserable.” 

Jeffrey was a little crushed by this superior wisdom 
and saw that he had failed to make his point, but he 
made one more effort. 

“Perhaps you’re right, Yost, but at any rate, gentle¬ 
men ought to know the truth; and while they may 
encourage the ignorant to enjoy the farce, they ought 
to be able to know what is behind the scenes. We 
have too much ignorance displayed right here in our 
own chapel. Take old Kennedy’s chapel talk last Sun¬ 
day, and the merest lout can pull it to pieces in a 
moment. He is still winding Paley’s watch. The 
argument of, as the watch is to the savage so the 
world is to us—making an analogy to prove a god— 
is all nonsense, and Herbert Spencer makes short work 
of it. Spencer is the man we should all know about. 
What do you say to getting a group together on Friday 
nights to read him? It’s certain we are not to get 
this kind of teaching in the class room, or at least 
not until we are seniors. Spencer is too much for one 
head, but if a bunch of us got together we might get 
a lot out of it. What do you say?” 

“Oh, I suppose we might get a few of our kind here 
liberal enough to start such a venture, but you’d better 
keep it dark. Begin, say, this next Friday night, and 
I’ll bring some of the fellows up to your room.” 

It was growing dark, and the dim kerosene lamps 
shone feebly out of the dormitory windows. From one 
of the houses across the campus, came the mournful 
sound of “Old Black Joe,” while overhead, an ancient 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


59 


owl was heard, with a flap of disgust, to leave its roost 
in a great branching maple. 

A disturbing element had entered into Collings¬ 
worth’s dream. That there were two sides to this 
work of necessary emancipation had not before entered 
his mind. He was not, even now, altogether sure that 
it was so, but the doubt troubled him. He began to 
reflect upon some other causes of discontent with his 
present life. The faculty were not as he had hoped. 
Daniels, the president, was a pompous vulgarian, with 
a voice like thick oil, and hair like a door mat. He 
stood at the desk, during the chapel hour, rolling his 
great eyes for all the world like an English bull pup, 
and while his phrases were choice enough, they seemed, 
to a listener, to ooze from a bubbling surface. Adding¬ 
ton was a voice from the tomb; Hendricks had a face 
of stained vellum, and verjuice eyes that snapped forth 
an ostentatious piety, begotten of decrepitude. Drury’s 
face was Gothic, and on the arches of his brow sadness 
made a sort of grimace; the others, with the exception 
of Wright and Fitzpatrick, who seemed at least human, 
looked like undernourished farmers. All of them were 
cold, formal, dead, mincing, spinsterish, and timid. 
Nothing was; everything seemed so. Academic stand¬ 
ards seemed to forbid enthusiasm. Nobody came trounc¬ 
ing into the classroom shouting — “Isn’t Mallory a 
treat?” or exclaimed, over a line of Lucretius, or 
Shakespeare,—“Here’s life,—these old scoundrels knew 
what they were talking about!” Their eyes didn’t 
even sparkle over Poe or Keats. Damn it all, they 
were dead, and buried in statistical graveyards, 
wrapped in the cerements of their own fears. 

Long after he had gone to bed the sense of baffle¬ 
ment kept him tossing about, watching strange shad¬ 
ows on the wall, and listening to the night sounds of 
the creatures that preyed upon other creatures, and 


60 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the terror cries of little birds. Now and then he heard 
the fall of solitary footsteps upon the brick walk out¬ 
side. Everything was disappointing. What did it all 
mean? On the hearth, a cricket, unannoyed by cosmic 
problems, was rubbing its legs together with insectial 
satisfaction. 


VIII 


I T has long been a custom, rigidly observed by the 
innumerable little denominational colleges dotting 
the hills of the South, not only to take an annual 
religious census, but also to hold what is called a 
“revival” some time after this event, for the recruiting 
of such as are listed as “unsaved,” or “not affiliated” 
with any of the conventionally orthodox churches. 

In the old days this series of religious services was 
conducted by the president, invariably a minister, or 
by the college chaplain; but of late, the waning of the 
old pieties, the coming of the new specialization, in¬ 
dustrialism, progress, the increase of what is known 
as democracy,—in a word, vulgarity, had brought into 
being, along with patent medicines, and perfumed tooth 
paste, that specialist in religious excitation, the evange¬ 
list. The least noxious of these, being at least able 
to read the Scriptures, were even invited to the colleges. 
The season for hunting “higher-critics,” an amusement 
invented as a substitude for witch burning, was then 
at its height in that region, and the presence of an 
approvedly evangelic and vociferous pointer in a given 
academic field, insured it, for a little while, from the 
suspicion of harbouring heretics. Wythe College, 
though stoutly manned by a theologically sound facul¬ 
ty, had hitherto escaped inquisition; but of late some 
one had heard some one else say that Dr. Fitzpatrick, 
an Episcopalian, and therefore already open to the 
charge of worldliness, was trying to reconcile the 
doctrine of evolution to the Creation stories of Genesis; 
and that Freeman had recommended James’ Psychology 
to supplement Dr. Noah K. Davis’ Mental Philosophy, 


62 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


and, worst of all, had suggested somebody’s book on 
the development of ethical concepts instead of Hopkins’ 
Law of Love. These rumors, sufficiently vague to 
prevent the actual preferment of charges, nevertheless 
made it necessary to invite some notably successful, 
and ecclesiastically unimpeachable evangelist to con¬ 
duct a campaign of salvation for the college students. 

Such an one was the Reverend Ebenezer Gross. 
This pious gentleman was the son of a formerly fa¬ 
mous Tennessee horse doctor; and, having been unable 
to create, during his fifty years, more than fifty-two 
sermons that would bear repeating, he felt called to 
the work of a roving evangelism where his fervid elo¬ 
quence might be more generously rewarded, and where 
his ambition to travel might be gratified. His thin 
lips and perfectly straight black hair were barely suffi¬ 
cient to offset the pale chocolate-drop complexion 
which might have proclaimed him a mulatto. He had 
the voice of an auctioneer and a temperament of Tor- 
quamada crossed with Yorick. With a little more 
intellectual training he might have made a creditable 
performance on the vaudeville circuit. As it was he 
saved, according to his modest handbills, a thousand 
souls a year,—nearly three a day. 

Announcements:—The students of the college are 
expected to attend the seven daily meetings held for 
their benefit by Mr. Gross. Preparation:—On each 
floor of the dormitories student prayer meetings will 
be held. The leaders of these meetings are to be ap¬ 
pointed by Mr. Peyton Wiley, secretary of the Y. M. 
C. A. Reconnaissance:—Mr. Wiley and his assistants 
will call on the students at their rooms for information 
relative to their religious beliefs and church member¬ 
ship. Will they please be ready to answer any ques¬ 
tions which they may ask? 

Jeffrey was ready, and when Wiley, a dapper and 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


63 


dimpled youth, with a very hearty hand shake and a 
very hard back slap, came into his room, he found 
that he was compelled to remain longer than the three 
minutes he had alloted for his questionnaire. 

“I suppose you are a Christian?” 

“What do you mean by Christian?” Jeffrey coun¬ 
tered. 

“Well, I suppose everybody in this enlightened land 
knows what a Christian means—a believer in Christ.” 

“Do you mean the historical Christ, or the meta¬ 
physical Christ?” 

“Both.” 

“Well, then, I have some doubts about the existence 
of the first, and refuse to answer the second until you 
make clear just what content you put into it.” 

“Aren’t you a member of the Presbyterian Church?” 

“My father forced me to be, so I’m a Presbyterian 
through fraud, and by misrepresentation.” 

“Shall I put you down, then, as Presbyterian?” 

“No! thundered Jeffrey, “if you must put down 
something, say agnostic.” 

“You don’t mean to say that you’re an infidel?” 
whispered Wiley. 

“Infidel means unfaithful, and I am trying to be 
faithful to myself to the best of my belief, so I am 
emphatically not an infidel.” 

“It seems to me that you’re too young to have such 
decided opinions wholly at variance with the world’s 
best minds.” 

“How about your being too young to have opinions? 
If I agreed with you it would be quite proper to have 
settled the whole matter of God, freedom, immortality, 
the resurrection, and all the rest of it,—regardless of 
my age. And who says that all the world’s best minds 
are on your side? Jefferson wasn’t, nor yet Lincoln, 
nor Emerson, nor Charles Darwin, nor Herbert Spen- 


64 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


cer; and, before Plato, all the Greek philosophers were 
sceptics.” 

“But the Greeks were before the light came; they 
had no Christ.” 

“If the Greeks were without light, then I think I'll 
be content to flutter along in the dark,” answered 
Jeffrey. 

“Look here, Collingsworth, this is bad business, and 
I hear that you have been having Yost and Pope and 
several others in here reading this infidel nonsense and 
making yourself a bad influence generally. I had 
hoped it was not true, but you have confirmed all that 
I heard and more. I haven’t time to answer all your 
objections, but I can tell you that they are childish, 
and I will send President Daniels up to see you. He 
will argue with you, if you are in earnest. I am sorry 
for you, and sorrier still for your good father and 
mother. What will thev think when they hear about 
this?” 

“You’ll tell my parents, I suppose? It would be 
very Christian of you.” 

“It would be Christian if I did, but I shan’t. The 
proper authorities may do as they see fit.” 

“I don’t believe you put anything down on your 
list about me,” said Jeffrey. “Aren’t you going to put 
me down as agnostic?” 

“Agnostic is not in my list of denominations,” Wiley 
replied. “Goodbye, I hope you will come to your 
senses.” He closed the door after him not too gently, 
but with vast relief. 

Jeffrey sank back into his chair a little wearily. So 
he was accused of being a bad influence, of leading 
upperclassmen astray. No doubt they would write to 
his father, and then there would be stormy letters, and 
his mother’s tears. He could picture the scene: John 
Collingsworth would tear around the room, and, fin- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


65 


ally, in a burst of futile rage, would accuse his wife 
of having been too lenient, too indulgent, toward his 
son. He would never think of blaming himself. Jef¬ 
frey was glad when he thought of his father's possible 
chagrin and rage. His only regret was for his mother. 
She never answered a rebuke, was never angered. She 
just loved and suffered. 


IX 


T HE earlier meetings of the revival were not in¬ 
tolerable. Ebenezer Gross would absent himself 
from the platform until the time for Scripture 
reading, when he would appear out of nowhere with a 
bound, and open his pocket Bible,at the very page from 
which he wished to read, by giving a mere flip of the 
hand in which he held the book outstretched as though 
it were a peach pie. Then he would read with rhetorical 
flourishes, and without glancing more than once or 
twice at the text. He made running comments in what 
he thought was good college vernacular. “Jesus Christ 
was always there with both feet,” he would say, when 
speaking of the scene at the Betrayal,—“he was the 
only man in the bunch that had the guts to die .... 
but, you ask me, why didn’t the Man of Sorrows, this 
Carpenter King, this Son of Almighty God, who could 
have called a legion of angels with flaming swords,— 
why didn’t he scrap? Listen!”—Here Gross would 
run rapidly toward the front of the platform, and 
lower his voice to a stage whisper—“Listen!” Now 
he would run, crouching, to the left of the platform— 
“Listen !—boys this was the guy that was brave enough 
to flunk out in this world, so that in Hell he might 
spit in old Satan’s face and make a chance for you 
damned sinners.” 

The maidenly members of the faculty looked uneasy 
and out of place on hearing this, but they supposed 
that in this wicked age the end justified the means, 
and if vulgarity was the means of making saints and 
steeping souls in spiritual culture, then they would, 
God helping them, tolerate even vulgarity. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


67 


Monday night Jeffrey listened with mingled feelings. 
He was astonished that such words should fall from 
the lips of a man who held in his hand such a master¬ 
piece of language as the English Bible; he was amused 
at the incongruity of acrobatics in a college pulpit. 
Tuesday night he was bored. Gross did not vary 
enough his athletic performances. Wednesday and 
Thursday Jeffrey spent the time, in an obscure pew, 
reading Tom Jones. By Friday night he had reached 
that scandalous point in Fielding’s wandering narra¬ 
tives, where Tom discovered Square in Molly Sea- 
grim’s bed room, and was all chuckles over this inde¬ 
cent incident, when suddenly one of the preacher’s 
words arrested his attention. It was something about 
“this infernal doctrine of evolution.” Jeffrey looked 
up. Gross seemed to be looking at him. 

“Right here in this college you all have a bunch of 
smart alecks whose empty heads have been turned by 
this nonsense. Why that theory was dead and stink¬ 
ing before it was half born. Look at man! He dreams, 
and lo, there is a mighty steam engine; he sees a vision, 
and behold the telephone. Being the child of God he 
is permitted to annihilate both time and distance; and 
yet Darwin says he came from a monkey! That old 
fool roasts tonight in hottest Hell, along with Tom 
Paine and Voltaire—all perverted degenerates who 
died crying to God for salvation of their miserable 

souls.and before another sun rises in yon eastern 

sky, my misguided friends, you, too, may be lying, 
white and cold, your body waiting its coffin, and your 
soul before an awful God! What are you going to say 
then? Alas, alas, it will be too late for us to know!— 
but I can tell you what an angry God will say to you 
—‘Thou fool, depart you into everlasting fire and brim¬ 
stone, prepared from the beginning for the devil and 
his angels.’ ” 



68 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


The sermon ended with an exhortation to fling in¬ 
tellectual vanities aside and to prepare to meet mothers 
and preachers and all good people in Heaven. Fol¬ 
lowed then the hymn :— 

“My days, my weeks, my months, my years, 

Fly rapid as the whirling spheres 
Around the steady pole. 

Time, like a tide, its motion keeps 

And I must launch through endless deeps, 

While endless ages roll.” 

And:— 

“Remember sinful youth, 

You must die; you must die;” 

During the singing Ebenezer sat, crouched down in 
his chair, with his face buried in his hands as though 
to give out the notion of intense pity and spiritual 
agony. Now and then he would raise his head, so that 
his lips could be revealed to the spectators, and would 
seem to be muttering a communication to some spirit¬ 
ual Presence. As the last words of the song died away 
he arose as if renewed by Heavenly assurance. 

“Boys,” he began, “you may never have another 
chance like this. The chariot of salvation may never 
pass this way again. The Holy Ghost may never 
knock at the door of your hearts as it is doing now. 
I may be the agent especially sent for your good, and 
appointed to snatch you like a brand from burning. 
So while we stand and join in the next hymn, I am 
going to give the sinners present an opportunity to 
come forward and sit on the front pew, and ask God 
to forgive them for their sins. I know that we are 
good Presbyterians here, and are shy of the mourners’ 
bench. We haven’t had much use in the past for the 
shouting Methodists and their methods, but it will do 
us good to stand out and testify for Jesus in public. 
Don’t deny your Master. Show your courage. Be 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


69 


men, and confess your sins. Please to sing the old 
and familiar hymn —There Is a Fountain Filled With 
Blood" 

A few came forward, but the revivalist was not 
satisfied. 

“Now my friends,’’ he resumed, addressing the 
standing congregation, “perhaps some of you have not 
yet made up your mind to come out for Christ; but 
before we engage in prayer, let any one who desires 
the prayers of the good Christians present, please sit, 
just where he is, and give evidence of his anxiety to 
be convicted of his sins. We will wait for just a 
moment.” 

A silence, brim full of curiosity, filled the auditorium 
and, one by one, as if reluctantly, a few more re¬ 
sponded ; each such action being rewarded by the 
preacher’s exclamation—“Praise God! Praise God!” 

It was an old device, used, no doubt, by the agitators 
beneath the shadows of the Pyramids, when the Pyra¬ 
mids were young. The object was to get everyone to 
take some action; and among people with evangelic 
tendencies, it invariably had its effect. Jeffrey had 
recently read a book on the psychology of religion, 
and in the chapter on suggestions and revivals, had 
found some discussion of this very method of swaying 
mobs. Calvanistic audiences were not quite so sus¬ 
ceptible to these things as the more emotional Wes- 
leyans. Still, when the test conies, very few can brave 
public disapproval and challenge an exhorter who 
praises the idols they seem, at any rate, to worship. 
An individualist, hard headed and independent, might 
scorn a particular mob action; but if the leader com¬ 
manded all who loved their country to remove their 
hats, he would hardly refuse. In this way an anarchist 
orator might have succeeded in getting some co-opera¬ 
tion from even Mr. Theodore Roosevelt. 


70 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“It would indeed be sad,” continued the preacher, 
“if, before this service is brought to a close, all the un¬ 
saved here present did not take some part in this great 
meeting. All of you boys have good mothers and 
fathers whom you want to meet in the Hereafter; none 
of you is so hardened but he desires, at some time, to 
be saved, so I want to ask all who wish to go to 
Heaven please to be seated where you are and bow 
your heads, after which we will join in prayer.” 

The audience sank back as one man,—that is, all but 
Jeffrey who, if anything, stood straighter than before, 
his face white and set, and his eyes burning with a 
kind of neurotic fire. The Spencer Club had lacked 
the courage of its apparent convictions. But no, there 
was Edward Yost rising to his feet. Yost had followed 
the crowd movement instinctively, but, catching sight 
of Jeffrey out of the corner of his eye, he flushed crim¬ 
son, summoned the rebel zeal of his ancestors, and rose 
trembling, supporting himself by clutching the back 
of the pew ahead. 

Gross was astonished. He glared at these impudent 
sinners as Calvin must have looked at Servetus. “Is 
it possible?” he groaned. Many heads came up to see 
what was possible. They were petrified by such inso¬ 
lence. 

“So you really want to go to Hell?” shouted the 
evangelist. 

Collingsworth bowed his head in unregenerate ac¬ 
quiescence; Yost simply stared. 

“Let us pray,” commanded Gross. 

The prayer that followed began with—“Lord Jesus, 
thine adversary, Satan, is in our midst.” In a few 
graphic phrases the Lord was informed of the horrible 
state of things in Wythe College. A young man was 
leading his weak satellites to Inferno. The revivalist 
went on to shatter the Darwinian hypotheses with 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


71 


awful epigrams. The Most High was reminded of 
the fate of Ingersoll. Then followed pyrotechnics, 
and, after that, an outline of college history. He then 
drew a picture of distressed and broken fathers and of 
sobbing mothers. A lurid photograph of Hell was 
taken on the spot. In conclusion came a plea for the 
protection of the innocent hearts against the contami¬ 
nation of one already hardened in sin and false pride. 

To Jeffrey, who already fancied himself an “eman¬ 
cipated free-thinker,” the whole thing was a travesty. 
He had been accustomed to a religious service that, if 
colorless, was yet, in its way, dignified and simple. 
He was not used to hearing Our Lord addressed in the 
language of the street, much less that of the alley. 
Enough of reverence and of a sense of fitness was left 
in him to be disgusted at this abandonment of all de¬ 
cency before the pretended need of salvation. 

Here, then, was the center of culture of which he 
had hoped such high things. Certainly it was not the 
kind of college life from which his grandfather had 
drawn his splendid ideals and gentle chivalry; things 
must have been better in the old days. Nor was it the 
kind of thing that Webb had spoken of. Still, Webb 
had been to Princeton, and that was in the North. In 
the North, no doubt, they were utterly free of this 
astounding vulgarity. At the first opportunity he 
would go there. Hawthorne and the Concord school 
had left their impress up there; and, anyway, the peo¬ 
ple somewhere must be free and beautiful. 

The following day found Collingsworth’s name 
bandied over the entire campus. The Spencer club 
was to be investigated. Such things were not to be 
allowed in a Christian institution. Prayer meetings 
were held. Being Saturday, there was no ordinary 
chapel service, but there was a special prayer meeting 
appointed at which Jeffrey was spoken of quite openly. 


72 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


It was deplored that one of his splendid family should 
be in such a spiritual plight. In the afternoon word 
was sent to him that Daniels and Gross were going to 
call,—“Would he kindly remain in his room?” 

They came. Gross now assumed a smirking pleas¬ 
antry, slapped Jeffrey’s back, felt of his biceps, ad¬ 
mired the room, asked concerning his father, and told 
anecdotes about his youth. He, too, had been very 
wild and exceedingly wicked. He, too, had read Paine, 
and, going further, had read every word of all the 
pagans and infidels—from Zeno to Haeckel. Their 
arguments were easily demolished. Where was the 
missing link? — Just where the philosopher’s stone and 
perpetual motion were-nowhere. We were all in¬ 

clined to be sceptics at some time in our lives. Faith 
was then all the more comforting after the reaction. 
One outgrew these heterodoxies if one had been well 
reared (Daniels said “raised”). And now would 
Jeffrey not, after having had his fling of independence, 
come this evening to the service determined to make 
his influence felt on the Lord’s side? If for no other 
reason than to counteract the bad influence he had 
exerted, this action would do good. 

Throughout this speech Jeffrey was remembering 
the violent things that had been said from the pulpit. 
Some of the men had grinned at his discomfiture. 
He hardened his heart. 

“No sir, I can’t do that honestly. I’ve been sub¬ 
mitted to a public insult. You forced me to make a 
demonstration against my will. I was compelled to 
attend your meetings and then was put in a position 
of ridicule.” 

“But my dear boy, it was such a simple proposi¬ 
tion,” objected Gross, “of course you want to go to 
Heaven?” 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


73 


“Not if evangelists like you are there,” Jeffrey re¬ 
plied. 

President Daniels, who had hitherto taken no part 
in this interview, now sprang to his feet exclaiming,— 
“Why this is an insult, Collingsworth, your father 
would thrash you for it, sir. This good man and I 
came here for your soul’s sake, and this is what we 
get. I shall write at once to your parents. You ought 
to be expelled, but unfortunately our rules make no 
mention of such offenses. However, sir, I want you 
to know that this so-called Spencer Club can and will 
be stopped. We will have no more infidel societies in 
this college, sir!” 

As they were leaving the room, Gross, the white 
lines about his lips betraying the lack of genuineness 
in his curious smile, assured Jeffrey that his Christian 
duty compelled a forgiving spirit, and that he would 
remember him in his prayers. 


The frightened remnants of the informal group of 
Infernals were a little shy, in the main; some had been 
frightened too thoroughly, dreading the publicity, or 
their parents, or, possibly, even Purgatory. Most of 
them were willing to continue their readings together 
if the meetings were furtive enough; and there were 
some possible recruits,—chiefly among those whose 
religious training had been under the more genial in¬ 
fluence of the Episcopal Church. These were not can¬ 
didates for atheism, but were sufficiently disgusted by 
the vulgarity of the recent events to enter into any 
scheme that might lend aid and comfort to the enemy. 
Altogether, Yost was well pleased with the results of 
a few hours interviewing, and took no inconsiderable 
pleasure in revealing what he had done to Collings¬ 
worth. 



74 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Thereafter the “Spencerites” became a sort of peri- 
patetic school of immature iconoclasts, without an 
acknowledged head, and with the single aim of finding 
arguments to discountenance clergymen. They wan¬ 
dered over the hills on Saturdays, and, alas, upon Sun¬ 
days also, finding in every leaf an evidence of evolu¬ 
tion ; in every pre-carboniferous fossil imbedded in the 
soft shale, or harder limestone,—a proof that man was 
the descendant of an inglorious reptile. The very flow¬ 
ers—sweet williams, and buttercups, and daisies, were 
refused their language of love, to be made sign posts 
of a theory. Reason was triumphant. 

On the Monday following the exit of Reverend 
Ebenezer Gross, the Owl, a magazine published jointly 
by the rival literary societies, devoted two brief para¬ 
graphs to the freshmen who were distinguishing 
themselves in debate, and in one of these occurred a 
notice of Jeffrey: “Mr. Jeffrey Collingsworth has dis¬ 
played remarkable talent in three debates this year. 
His diction is good, arrangement of material logical, 
and his manner, for the most part, agreeable. The 
committee believes that if Collingsworth continues to 
improve as he has done this term, that before his 
Senior year he will make one of the best debaters the 
college has produced in recent years. Old Euripideans 
will recall that Collingsworth is a worthy name, and 
that the class of 1842 had a medal man of that name 
who withstood Nelson of William and Mary and 
brought home the honors.” 

Jeffrey marked this number, turned down the corner 
of the precious page, and mailed it to his father in the 
hope that the pleasure arising from this good news 
would cause that parent’s heart to soften and, perhaps, 
even elicit a letter of praise. Here is the response 
that came: 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


75 


My Dear Son:— 

I was away from home attending some affairs of 
the Presbytery when President Daniels' alarming 
letter came; otherwise you would have heard from 
me much sooner. In your last letter to your mother 
you alluded to nothing of this disgraceful affair. I 
suppose your conscience did not permit it. I am 
both amazed and pained that a child of mine should 
take such an unwarrantable position, and should 
afterwards become so arrogant and insulting—Mr. 
Gross and the president were your guests and you 
had no right to act and speak as you did. I do not, 
in general, approve of either revivals or evangelists, 
but if rank infidelity and higher criticism are going 
to develop in our schools, I fail to see how else they 
are to be combatted. 

You have had rare Christian training and have 
been sheltered from evil in such a way that I hoped 
you had escaped such godlessness, but, alas, I fear 
you have a weak mind, and no gratitude for the 
pains I have taken to have you educated for Chris¬ 
tian manhood. You are headed toward the Devil, 
sir, and if you do not come to a stop, all I can do is 
to withdraw your college opportunities at the end 
of the year. 

Your mother is heartbroken. May her prayers 
and my own avail somewhat in bringing you to the 
light! 

Regretfully, 

your father, 

John Collingsworth. 

Just about what he expected,—all “alases” and 
“dear me’s,” and no reason. Still it was depressing. 
Such letters always made one feel as if one had swal¬ 
lowed an egg without cracking the shell; took away 


76 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


one’s notion of self-importance, destroyed one’s self- 
confidence for a time. He wished there were no mails, 
no postoffices to bear ill tidings. Why did he have 
such a father? He would change his name when he 
grew up. In the midst of these bitter reflections some¬ 
one rapped at the door. 

“Come in,” he growled. 

The door opened. “Oh!”—it was Dr. Fitzpatrick. 
Jeffrey rose, very much embarrassed. 

“Hello, Collingsworth, you look as if you had been 
seeing things. Whatever is the trouble?” 

Here, Jeffrey felt, was someone who would under¬ 
stand what a mess he was in and would perhaps show 
some sympathy. He handed him his father’s letter in 
silence. 

Fitzpatrick adjusted his glasses, sank back in a chair, 
and read the neatly penned pages with appropriate 
solemnity. Then, slowly, a genial grin, unacademic and 
slightly pagan, overspread his features. He had an 
enormous mouth, Jeffrey noted, but just now this 
strikingly simian feature seemed almost beautiful. 

“Did it ever occur to you,” began the biologist,— 
“that some people lack a sense of humor? I have spent 
several years in this college trying to point out that 
evolution does not destroy religion. Many of my 
students who had some doubts at first have gone forth 
from this college to become ministers, and, moreover, 
ministers who are immune to the attacks of ordinary 
infidelity. And now, as a result, some people, who 
claim to be very religious, have worked hard to put 
me off the faculty on the ground that I am under¬ 
mining faith. An evangelist comes here to stem the 
tide of doubt, antagonizes a lot of you young freaks, 
and makes you so sick of religion that you deny every¬ 
thing. A charming bit of irony. It reminds me of a 
little thing that occurred to an uncle of mine when I 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


77 


was a boy. This uncle had a wife whom he thoroughly 
despised, and of whom he would gladly have been rid. 
By her, however, he had a child, a little boy, of whom 
he was very fond. One day during a runaway acci¬ 
dent, he attempted, from a singular sense of chivalry, 
to save the life of the wife whom he hated, and, in the 
attempt, knocked down and killed the child which he 
loved above all the world. Ah well, that is the way 
life runs, I think.” 

Jeffrey began to forget his troubles in the presence 
of this cheerful cynic, and even smiled. 

“I believe you are about seventeen, aren’t you, Col¬ 
lingsworth ?” 

“Nearly that, sir.” 

“Well, I was seventeen about thirty years ago, and 
since that time I have met some pretty stupid folk, 
both ministers and laymen—even professors—but I 
have learned that it is better not to antagonize people. 
Keep your ideas to yourself until they learn to stand 
alone, and then you won’t be anxious about them. 
After you get out of college, and have money enough 
and power enough not to care what people say, then 
you can express what you like. Before then you had 
better seem to agree with them, and, as the Scripture 
says, be ‘all things to all men.’ ” 

Jeffrey objected that this course of conduct seemed 
both dishonest and cowardly. 

“No,” replied Fitzpatrick, mildly, “it is not dishon¬ 
est. What are ideas worth, anyway? There are only 
a few original ones, and most of what we call original 
ideas are utterly worthless. A wholly original thought 
is almost never a good thought. Sound thoughts are 
modifications, ever so slight, of the thoughts of others. 
And you boys, who have stirred up all this trouble 
for yourselves, have borrowed your ideas from Spen¬ 
cer, who borrowed from Darwin, who borrowed from 


78 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


his grandfather and from the Lamarck, who borrowed 
from somebody else,—and so on back to the Greeks. 
And, on the other hand, Gross borrowed his attempted 
refutations of these ideas from a long line of theolo¬ 
gians. If he had borrowed good ideas from sounder 
men he might have come out better. By accident you 
found a more logical source than he. That’s all there 
is to that matter. And since you will probably be bor¬ 
rowing from a dozen or more contradictory sources 
before you are a half a dozen years older, why go on 
working up all these good people to such a state? . . . 
Meantime I will borrow some of your tobacco.” 

Somewhere back in his father’s line of ancestry was 
a little Huguenot blood, the corpuscles of which grew 
very hot in Jeffrey’s veins during this friendly talk 
with Fitzpatrick. The old dissenters hated Jesuitism 
in every form, and must have handed down sharply 
angular cells to their remotest descendants. At any 
rate he was uncomfortable. Fitzpatrick was the one 
man left of all the faculty whose judgment he re¬ 
spected, and just now he seemed to be counseling 
cowardice. 

“I beg pardon, sir, for appearing impudent,” said 
Jeffrey, “and I am very grateful to you for taking the 
pains to come to see me, and for being so reasonable; 
but to me, a thing must be either true or false. The 
Bible stories don’t square with science, and the science 
you teach has facts to prove that the earth is millions 
of years old, and that life has developed from lower to 
higher forms. If science is right, Genesis is wrong. 
And if Genesis is wrong there wasn’t any Fall . . . . ” 

“Wait a moment, you are going too fast,” inter¬ 
rupted Fitzpatrick. “Genesis may be wrong about one 
thing and right about another. Wrong about the ma¬ 
terial history, and right about spiritual interpretation. 
I am not talking to be quoted, but it is quite possible 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


79 


that the science of the Bible, if we insist upon taking 
it as it stands, is very erroneous. It doesn’t pretend 
to be a text-book, and is not to be blamed for ignorant 
interpreters who make anything out of nothing. But 
you’re just as bad; you take the same point of outlook 
that the preachers you object to have taken. But it 
isn’t important enough to make a fuss about. What I 
want is that you should put off the discussion until 
you are older and can look at the facts more calmly.” 

“But,” Jeffrey began, “Emerson says,—‘speak what 
you think today in words as hard as cannon balls . . ” 

“You forget that he also says, in the same essay,— 

‘Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat-and flee’; 

Emerson is, like the Bible, full of wholesome contra¬ 
dictions; but I didn’t come here to preach to you. 
You’ve probably had preaching enough, and have re¬ 
volted because the preachers seemed too sure. All I 
want is that you should avoid repeating the same 
faults. Above all don’t be hot about it. Meantime I’m 
sorry we old fogeys haven’t sense enough to avoid 
making an issue of such silly questions. Come up to 
my house some evening, when you have forgotten all 
this bother, and tell me something about your reading.” 

And he was gone. With him went another of Col¬ 
lingsworth’s illusions. To one in his state of feeling, 
this man was worse than Gross. For while the former 
had training, knowledge, and science; Gross was ig¬ 
norant. Fitzpatrick was a Judas to the cause. He had 
sold out for a professor’s salary. Coward! he was jug¬ 
gler with words. With his training a man might wreck 
all the churches in Christendom; abolish theology, 
Hell, the Devil, and all superstition. Then there would 
be happy men and women over all the world. People 
would work and play on Sunday; and would laugh 
everywhere and always. No more churches to keep 
up, no more sermons to hear; no more long prayers 



80 


CABLES OF COBWEB 

nor dull hymns, nor sins of which to repent in ashes. 
Progress would then be untrammeled; statues of 
Galilieo, and Darwin, and Ingersoll would be set up 
everywhere in place of the busts of bishops and dron¬ 
ing clergymen. The world would be free. Oh, the 
shame of such hypocrisy! He was on the verge of 
tears. In his imagination he stroked the world as 
though it were a stray kitten. Never mind, he would 
save the world before it was too late. He would not 
desert the cause. 



XI 


N OW every springtime it was the custom for 
Adele Murphy, a shopworn practitioner in 
women’s favorite vice, to pay a stealthy visit 
to Wythe College in answer to calls of the cosmic 
urge. For the paltry sum of two dollars the young 
readers of Petronius Arbiter and Aristophanes might 
be initiated into the mysteries of a very commercial¬ 
ized Aphrodite Pandemos, and made afterwards to 
make propitiatory rites to that evil planet which lies 
nearest to the sun. Watchful college officials made 
this annual ministration increasingly difficult, causing 
the young woman anxious pains and shortening her 
stay in academic regions to a degree incompatible 
with that luxurious leisure that sybaritic lovers like. 
Puritanism, wedded to the spirit of mechanical effi¬ 
ciency, has made even vice akin to the quick lunch 
counter. 

No one knew just who it was that saw her first. No 
one ever did. She came, got oflr the train on the side 
opposite Faculty Row, hastily communicated her pres¬ 
ence and a tryst to some former patron, promised 
favors to her messenger, and usually sped away to the 
wooded hills back of the Confederate cemetery. Then, 
after supper, she would receive visitors and, if the gods 
seemed propitious, make shift to remain for two or 
three days; if not, she vanished about the time of the 
midnight local. 

The rumor spread rapidly. Adele had come earlier 
than usual. Perhaps she had heard of the successful 
revival, and hastened her coming to reap the fruits of 
new-awakened love. Nothing is more appropriate in 


82 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the economy of nature, than the quick response man 
makes to the calls of the flesh just after a refreshing 
of the spirit by a season of highly emotional religious 
rites. The birth rate rises very perceptibly some three- 
quarters of a year after any great camp meeting where 
souls are aroused to a sense of their high moral re¬ 
sponsibility. The whole social fibre is stiffened. Such 
may have been the reasoning of Adele. If so, it was 
the fruit of experience and not the result of a course 
of training in social statistics. Be that as it may, she 
was waiting, and was soon to hear eager footsteps in 
the forest. 

Jeffrey sensed an unusual tenseness at the Commons 
when he went to supper. Men who were wont to be 
dull and lifeless, had a glow in their eyes as though 
they beheld a great vision and were destined to hold 
communion with the Queen of Heaven. They lived! 
And yet there was upon them a constrained silence. 
It was not until the meal was ended and they were 
outside, away from the inhibiting influences of the 
artificial, and sheltered by unmoral trees, and winked 
at by the pagan stars, that they broke the spell and 
began to talk. Between almost adolescent titters Jef¬ 
frey was told of the important visitor and her ancient 
mission. They were all going up Cemetery Hill to 
look at this carnival of passion; none were going to 
participate. It would be great fun to watch. Would 
Jeffrey go? 

Now it happened that, a few days before the revival, 
Jeffrey had seen a book called What a Young College- 
Man Should Know, lying on a table in a friend’s room, 
had picked it up, and, on finding that it dealt with sex, 
had read its meager and overstated message in an 
hour. The book abounded in clerical sentimentalism 
and ridiculous inaccuracies, but its one or two illus¬ 
trations of those parts of our frame which are omitted 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


83 


from school books on anatomy, lent a certain authority 
to the treatise which the M.D. appended to the Rev¬ 
erend author’s name doubly confirmed. The book 
taught two things: Sex is the source of the greatest 
pleasure in the world; sex is the most dangerous thing 
in the world. Under the second head he was told that 
the self-gratification of this impulse spelt idiocy; mu¬ 
tual gratification resulted in syphilis. One would 
rot, one’s limbs fall off, one’s eyes drop out, leaving 
hideous, pus-filled cavities. He gathered that if he 
married a woman, however, it would be perfectly 
safe. Nothing would happen. Before marriage every 
drop of life-fluid lost meant a year less of life. He 
made a rough calculation and found that he had about 
three more years to live. Fie believed it for a few 
hours, because the book invoked the spirit of science; 
and one touch of science makes all rationalists gullible. 
Jeffrey’s faith in the accuracy of the prophecy was not 
long unshaken. There were too many exceptions still 
alive and moving all around him. Nevertheless a 
wholesome fear remained. 

“Would he go?” he asked himself again and again. 
His sense of decency was outraged. He was shocked. 
He feared the thing, whatever it was, but he was curi¬ 
ous. Here was the mystery of the world about to be 
made plain. Here was the thing too awful for his 
father to utter,—the thing that had made him stop at 
“bowels”. Jeffrey longed to be horrified, for he was 
persuaded that the horror was beautiful. 

The place was not difficult to find, for the paths were 
already well worn, and anxious groups were now ar¬ 
ranged about under the trees. Some of the fellows 
were excitedly puffing big cigars. They moved around 
with an assumed and exaggerated mirth, now and then 
bursting into loud laughter. They were like dogs when 
a bitch is in heat. 


84 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


There, under a friendly pine, was the woman, gaunt, 
coughing, white-eyed, yellow-haired, with features 
strangely like those of the most fantastic creations of 
Aubrey Beardsley. Her soiled red waist was half un¬ 
buttoned, her hat and coat lay in a crumpled heap on 
the left; at the right and within reach, were a small 
revolver and a battered handbag into which, during 
the brief intervals between amatory encounters, she 
stuffed dirty bills. The initiatory exercises for which 
the woman received these rewards lasted from four to 
five minutes, during which the youthful initiate was 
heckled and encouraged, laughed at and applauded by 
his riotous friends. The spectacle was revolting, and 
yet, even the more fastidious, whose sense of decency 
forbade participation in this orgy, felt a sort of con¬ 
tagion. For it was one of those April nights when the 
Ram was in the ascendency, and everything seemed 
to be in an erotic mood. The very trees rubbed their 
limbs together in a sort of amorous frenzy. The rising 
full moon looked like a phallic symbol from a Roman 
garden; and in the valley below, a passionate steam 
engine, standing on a side-track, seemed intermittently 
to breathe out, “Pan, Pan; Pan, Pan.” 

Twenty youths, fresh from pious homes where they 
had been protected from all pernicious references to 
sex, and where their origin had been referred to the 
anti-Malthusian stork; twenty youths on whose heads 
the holy hands of the evangelist had but lately been 
laid, and in whose hearts had burned a yearning for 
“the peace that passeth understanding,” now contrib¬ 
uted to that institution of social insurance whereby 
our homes are made safe. Nearly two weeks later 
twenty of the students of Wythe College limped into 
chapel leaning heavily on hickory walking sticks. 

Yost, who had watched this sport with Jeffrey, 
joined him on the return to the campus. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


85 


“For my part/’ said he, “give me a little well chosen 
irregularity; but this kind of thing is nasty.” 

“Hideous,” Jeffrey agreed. “It tempts a decent man 
to make himself a eunuch. If this is sex, to hell with 
it!” And yet he was right glad to have had even this 
horrid glimpse of the elementary mechanics of love. 


XII 


I N southern colleges debating and oratory are held 
in greater esteem than in most American schools, 
and proficiency in these things is noted by the 
faculty and has a decided bearing on the awarding of 
degrees. At Wythe, instead of a thesis, four orations 
were given by the senior, whose diction was criticized 
by the English professor, and whose subject matter 
came under the jurisdiction of whatever department 
in which he chose to major. A committee from each of 
the societies reported the standing of its members in 
debate and this, likewise, was counted for or against 
the scholastic position of the student. This, added to 
the general predilection of southerners to speech mak¬ 
ing, and their idealization of orators, gave great im¬ 
petus to the life of the college societies, and compelled 
men, who otherwise would have never glanced at them, 
to read, in the better magazines, about contemporary 
problems. 

The subject chosen this year for the annual inter¬ 
society Freshman Debate, was Socialism. The Euri- 
pideans were to affirm; the Euterpians took the nega¬ 
tive. Collingsworth was the leader for his society and, 
for the first time, began to read socialist propaganda. 
There were no books on socialism in the college li¬ 
brary, other than texts of general economics; and most 
of the magazines, except the Arena, were hostile. In 
the Arena he found an advertisement of Wilshire’s 
Magazine, and an announcement of a socialist pub¬ 
lishing house in Chicago. He ordered the magazine 
and a catalogue of books, after receiving which he 
began to wrestle with surplus-value, economic deter- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


87 


minism, wage slavery, the evils of capitalism, and the 
inevitable crisis. “Let the Nation own the Trusts” 
became his motto, and the Communist Manifesto took 
place beside Spencer in his new Testament. When the 
night of the debate finally came, he was well supplied 
with alarming statistics about child-labor, and over¬ 
production, and was full of the catch phrases from a 
hundred pamphlets. His material was well arranged, 
and, if the speech was a trifle hysterical, the facts col¬ 
ored, and the gestures profuse, it nevertheless gave 
evidence of sincerity and life. His hearers were mildly 
interested. Socialism was to them the dream of harm¬ 
less fanatics, and without serious danger. The time 
had not come when students were forbidden to play 
with economic heterodoxity, so there was no more 
prejudice than if the discussion had been concerned 
with the merits of ham and eggs. Disinterested and 
impersonal judges gave the medal to Jeffrey. 

He sent this golden token of triumph to his mother 
whose reply, full as it was of pride and a certain 
tremulous joy, showed all too plainly, that it was 
penned in secret. Her husband seemed to take no 
notice of the affair, and maintained a stiff silence. 

There is, in most socialistic literature a kind of chip- 
on-the-shoulder belligerency, and, in what is known as 
scientific or Marxian Socialism, there runs, along with 
the economic theses, definite hostility to organized 
religious institutions which sometimes appeals to 
young rebels, disturbed by symptomatic and phenom¬ 
enal, rather than fundamental evils, more than the 
theory itself. To Jeffrey the scientific color and evo¬ 
lutionary background of these writers, coupled with 
their prognostication of an inevitable collapse of 
Christianity, compelled respect. Any milder statement 
of the theory would have failed to awaken in him 
a particle of interest. He first became convinced 


88 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


that socialism was an ally to agnosticism, a means of 
overturning the superstitions that murder joy. Now 
he felt that the economic order must go first; men 
would become free-thinkers afterwards. It would be 
just as well, however, to destroy both the economic 
and religious orders at the same time. His task was 
growing; and he felt the necessity for becoming a 
clear thinker. 

In one of the magazines now coming to his table, he 
saw an advertisement: “Think Clearly; Be a vegetar¬ 
ian.” He sent for literature which informed him that 
the co-operative commonwealth would come, wars 
would cease and superstitions die, when the evils of 
eating flesh were overcome. Meat clouded the brain 
and made brutes of men. Shelley, who wrote Queen 
Mab, was a vegetarian. Jeffrey read the life of 
Shelley, passed on to Queen Mab, and quit eating meat. 
He believed in the universal kinship, and resolved to 
be no longer a joint criminal in a society of murderers. 
In addition to handing out copies of Wilshire’s and 
the Appeal, and Ingersoll’s Lectures, he now distrib¬ 
uted some little leaflets bearing the title:—“Why I 
am a vegetarian.” 

But this was not enough. One of the charges hurled 
against the socialists on the night of the debate was 
that they believe in free love. Now this is not strictly 
true, and the boy had seen denials of it, even denun¬ 
ciations, in the books which he had lately read; but 
the charge had been made in such heat that he re¬ 
solved to investigate the subject of free love. Now, 
while the standard socialist papers did not advocate 
free love, they were very willing to advertise the 
literature of any cause unwelcome to the journals of 
respectability. Thus it came to pass that Jeffrey read 
of and sent for Aaron Philo’s “Crimes of Marriage,” 
and “The Philosophy of Free Love,” wherein he 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


89 


learned that to be a real revolutionist he must include 
in his program of emancipation the unshackling of 
women, the overthrow of conventional marriage, and 
the rehabilitation of the illegitimate child. Once more 
he was appealed to in the name of Darwin and the 
evolutionists. Again the harsh music of the arraign¬ 
ment of the preachers summoned him to the aid of a 
new cause. For the sake of science he would do 
anything. All he now lacked of being the typically 
emancipated American, was a course in Christian 
Science, the art of Yogi breathing, crystal gazing, and 
a manual of astrology. But he had not heard of these 
wonders, and, besides, they did not invoke the name 
of his particular gods. 

Collingsworth was by this time regarded, by those 
who had formerly considered him a dangerous in¬ 
fluence, as simply a harmless crank with a passion for 
the new and strange. Knowing nothing of the genesis 
of his aversions, they put down his radicalism to a 
desire for the bizarre, and treated him with amused 
tolerance. Daniels was relieved rather than perturbed 
by each new rumor which came into the president’s 
office, and, toward the end of the year, wrote to Mr. 
Collingsworth that the boy would soon tire of his 
mental playthings and return to normal. 

The college term drew to a close, and, after a fury 
of examinations, parades, flowers, orations and fare¬ 
wells, the thing was done, and Jeffrey joined his parents 
at the old Mill Creek farm where they sometimes 
spent the summer. 


XIII 


B ETWEEN the gentle April showers the grass 
on the hills beyond Ripple Ford looked tempting 
enough for a walk, and several times the woman 
had glanced up from her embroidery hoop, out through 
the window, and resolved to set forth, only to hear 
the approaching patter of yet another downpour. At 
last, however, the defiant sun burst forth with a more 
persistent resolve, sent the clouds scurrying across 
the sky, and lighted up the freshened meadows until 
the cattle that had been huddled under the trees came 
boldly out to browse. The woman rose and prepared 
to go. 

A rather handsome blonde of about forty, with the 
voluptuousness traditionally characteristic of widows, 
Mrs. Hilda Wethermore might have married again 
if her late husband’s insurance and the slight legacy 
left by her New England parents had been tempting 
enough to the very few marriageable men of the 
county. As it was there had been a few candidates,— 
an ex-preacher, far too old; a store-keeper, far too 
ignorant; and a school teacher, far too poor. She 
might have returned to her native suburb of Boston 
after the death of Ephram Wethermore, who had been 
professor of the Romance languages at Wythe, but 
unfortunately, there had been, prior to her marriage, 
some naughty gossip which had made the place of 
her birth seem as hateful as Ripple Ford now seemed 
likely to become. A widow for more than three years, 
some said that her husband had succumbed to an 
excess of marital devotion, and others, with true neigh¬ 
borly interest, discovered that on one occasion a 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


91 


traveling salesman had visited at her cottage until 
near midnight. On her part Mrs. Wethermore re¬ 
gretted the sentimental impulse which led her, when 
she left the house in Faculty Row, to seek the nearby 
village—only three miles distant—of Ripple Ford. She 
might have gone to Washington, she frequently re¬ 
flected, and, by this time married an unattached 
government official. 

Despite a long line of New England ancestors there 
was little of the Puritan in this woman’s instincts; and 
many of the homelier wives in Wythe had looked with 
reproving frowns upon her fondness for young com¬ 
pany, and upon a certain lustre in her eyes. Still there 
was no scandal while her husband lived, and she had 
gone away in good enough repute to warrant being 
invited to college commencements. It was on the 
Baccalaureate Sunday of the previous college year that 
she had met Jeffrey, then a Sophomore. The boy 
interested her at once. He had that about him which 
betrayed discontent and a vague restlessness, capable 
of divers interpretations. She sprang at once, with 
characteristically feminine logic, to a conclusion born 
of her own lack of that which, by her widowhood, she 
had been temporarily deprived. In a word, she felt 
that he needed a woman’s guiding hand, and under¬ 
standing heart. She would supply both. 

It had long been a custom for the students of Wythe 
to make Ripple Ford the goal of an afternoon walk. 
There was a soda fountain, and, better still, a bar at 
which one might imbibe very green beer for five cents 
a glass. This last was forbidden and therefore all 
the more desirable. In his first and second years 
Jeffrey had but seldom gone on these pilgrimages; 
the place had seemed unattractive enough, and green 
beer, while necessary to his program of iconoclasm, 
made havoc with his digestion. This year it was 


92 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


different. Remembering an invitation given by the 
widow Wethermore in the previous spring, he had 
called. 

During the first visit he had been ill at ease, and 
a spirit of dumbness had possessed him, defying the 
woman’s every inquiry concerning his curious theories 
of life. He came nearer to being articulate when she 
showed him the quaint bits of New England furniture 
which she had brought into the South fifteen years 
before—an old banjo-clock, some “Hessian” andirons, 
and an ox-bow desk. 

“The people here in Virginia,” she explained with 
some defiance, “are not the only ones who inherit old 
furniture. Indeed, I believe this Wainscott chair of 
mine came over, with one of my mother’s people, in 
the Mayflower.” She led him to the door of her 
bedroom. 

“There is the portrait of one of my great greats,” 
indicating a faded painting of a very wry faced and 
much bestocked old gentleman, — “Henry Dwight 
Winship was one of the first ministers in Boston. 
I keep his picture over my bed just to remind me of 
the 'thou shalt nots\” She looked knowingly at Jeffrey 
who blushed, though he scarcely knew why. 

The second time he called she took him, with a 
yet greater wisdom, to the kitchen, in the cooler of 
which was found some fried chicken, cooked in the 
approved southern manner, and a finely boiled old 
sugar-cured ham. Having partaken of these dainties 
he became voluble with praise. He had heard that 
northerners know nothing of the kitchen arts. She 
conceded that she had learned much in Virginia. 

“We Virginians are civilized in at least two of our 
tastes,” said Jeffrey,—“mint julep and cured ham. To 
be right,” he continued, “a ham must be treated for 
many days in salt-petre and sugar, then smoked over 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


93 


smouldering hickory; after that saturated with port 
wine, and, finally, hung up in brown paper for a little 
better than a year. It is then fit for a Cyrenaic.” He 
had already forgotten his vegetarianism. It had to be 
laid aside too often for the sake of sociability. 

“Would you like to make a mint julep?” she 
queried, anxious to please, “I have some whiskey, and 
there is plenty of ice.” 

And so, after a little, he explained the elaborate 
ritual of the famous mixture with right honest gusto, 
and showed why the mint leaves should be bruised 
ever so slightly with a solid silver spoon—the slightest 
alloy spoiled the drink. She affected an unfelt interest, 
and exhibited a too childish glee. He felt that he was 
a success with women. 

Later the widow lent him a marked copy of Leaves 
of Grass ,—portions of “The Children of Adam” being 
heavily underlined. The raucus paganism of Whitman, 
his carefree gospel of conventionlessness, and his 
startling juxtapositions appealed to Collingsworth. 
Those hymns to the flesh made conspicuous by an 
itching pencil, awoke recollections of his old deter¬ 
mination to try out free love. This was the one of 
his acquired theories that had proved quite unmention¬ 
able, and he had put it away for a time. But, he 
reasoned, if a woman were emancipated enough to 
approve of Walt Whitman, might she not at least 
listen to him? He was sure that she would not be so 
shocked as the one or two college fellows to whom he 
had mentioned the subject. They had replied:—“So 
that is what socialism leads to!” 

Several times Jeffrey had wandered over to the 
village hoping for an accidental encounter. Once Mrs. 
Wethermore had been trimming some wayward vines 
in the garden; at another time she had been coming 
away from the post-office. On each occasion they had 


94 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


taken a short walk together, and by this they knew 
certain favorite spots where, by tacit understanding, 
they might meet as though by chance; and where, 
always, on encounter, they feigned surprise. Saturday 
finally came to be recognized as their day, and the 
place was usually an old and deserted orchard near 
Byrds Mill,—a place equidistant from college and the 
village. 

Back in the orchard stood a dilapidated shed under 
the very inadequate shelter of which Jeffrey had been 
waiting for above half an hour. His rain coat was 
dripping, and the pages of Emerson’s essay on 
Friendship were puckered by the drops of rain that 
made their way through the rotted shingles. He had 
been reading Emerson as a kind of preparation for 
what he intended to say. To his immature and in¬ 
experienced mind, love was a beautiful thing — a 
mystery and a sacrament hitherto unassociated with 
his natural sensuousness. And yet, to him, friendship 
was even a greater wonder than love. From his later 
reading he got an idealism which he had not before 
found expressed in the more conventional books, nor 
exemplified in life. Most married folk seemed bored 
with one another, or spoke sharply. One or the other 
dominated and made domesticity a thing of slavery. 
If people would take friendship, he thought, for the 
strong foundation of their love; if they would maintain 
separate homes, and thus avoid those intimacies which 
reveal the ugly, these unions of men and women would 
not descend into boredom. Moreover, if the union 
were unfettered by the binding force of legality, there 
would be no sense of restraint, and, therefore, a greater 
desire to restrain all that might hurt or lead to the 
lessening of romantic joy. If Mrs. Wethermore, from 
the depths of her experience, could confirm this point 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


95 


of outlook, and would lend herself to these ideas per¬ 
haps they, together, could do much to restore love to 
its original freedom. 

He heard a familiar whistle, then a little exclamation 
accompanied by a patter of rain drops as the woman's 
hat shook a low-hanging bough. 

“Ugh, now I am all wet, and it hasn't rained a drop 
since I left home either,” she began coming towards 
the shed. “And you, why you dear boy, you are 
drenched!” 

“That’s just my rain coat,” he explained, “it was 
pouring when I left.” 

“Then you must love your walks very much?” she 
questioned, fishing for a compliment. 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Why do you always call me ‘Ma’am’, or ‘Mrs. 
Wethermore’?” she demanded. “I wish you would 
call me Nell—at least when we are out on our walks.” 
Then, seeing the book,—“What have you been reading 
this time?” 

“Emerson on Friendship. Isn’t it wonderful?” 

“Yes, it is, rather; but it is years since I have looked 
at Emerson. Let’s go out to the big rocks on the 
hill where it is nice, and you can tell me about it.” 

Together they walked out through the orchard to 
a little eminence where stood a few lonely cedars be¬ 
neath which the out-jutting limestone looked like a 
leaning stack of vellum-clad books. A flock of sheep, 
washed clean by the shower, was nibbling grass down 
the slope, at the bottom of which ran the silver thread 
of a tiny stream broken, now and then, by green 
masses of water-cress. To the south-east, where white 
clouds were lifting, stood the North Carolina Mount¬ 
ains. The pair stood silent for a time, then she reached 
out and touched his hand. 

“Jeffrey, spread your rain coat inside out on this 


96 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


flat rock so I can sit down and listen to your Emerson 
lesson in comfort.” 

And thus it was that Emerson became a text for 
a sermon that the Concord poet would have shuddered 
to hear. Collingsworth’s boyish eloquence over 
borrowed social hypotheses would have been amusing 
if there had not been about him a very tremulous and 
passionate sincerity. He spoke as if he knew the awful 
loneliness of disappointed love and the hellish terrors 
of divorce. And he was intoxicated to see the interest 
in the glowing eyes of his audience. Nelly was won¬ 
dering whether his lips could be taught to kiss. 

“But what are you going to do if there are children?” 
She objected, when there was a pause. 

“Under socialism—” 

“But there isn’t any socialism, and may not be for 
a thousand years. What would you have now,—con¬ 
ventional marriage, or brave the wrath of society? 
What do you propose for today?” 

“People in Europe have formed free unions without 
trouble, and anyway one must be willing to pay a 
price if one is to do anything fine. A beautiful love 
must be worth a dozen sordid marriages, and I don’t 
mean to live as”—(he was about to say ‘as Mother 
has’, but checked himself)—“most people do.” 

“You are a dear,” she soothed, patting his hand, 
“and you are so unhappy. I wish I could take you 
away where we could be free of all this; but you’re 
a dreamer, too much of a dreamer. Marriage is nec¬ 
essary for most of us. Without it we could have no 
peace. The trouble with you, my dear, is that you 
are too frank. Why tell all your ideas? When men 
and women are unhappy in love they find a way 
outside marriage, but they don’t tell everybody.” 

“Neither do they accomplish anything for society.” 

“They get what they want.” 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


97 


“Yes,” replied the boy with some heat as he recalled 
the scene on Cemetery Hill, “and they have established 
prostitution; they are filthy dogs. Oh, I hate it all! 
I want everything to be above board.” 

She saw that he was thinking of his theories and 
not of her, and she was disinclined to waste her days 
in the abstract. Drawing his head to her shoulder 
she ran her hand through his bushy black hair, and 
talked to him as if he were her child. She implanted 
a warm kiss on his neck. Presently his mind came 
down from cloudland, and he became conscious that 
he was with a woman. 

“You’re a terrible stubborn little boy, you know,” 
she murmured. Then, after a long pause, added, with 
a look, the significance of which was wasted, “still 
you know only the unbendable delight the un¬ 
fathomable.” 

His mind soared again—“Yes,” he responded, de¬ 
lighted at what he thought was a compliment, — 
“persistence wins.” 

She arose abruptly, irritated by his innocence. The 
epigram with which she had so often taunted her 
husband had passed over the boy’s head. “Come,” 
she urged sharply, “it is getting late, I must get back 
to the house.” He wondered what he had done. 

Presently they entered upon an old lane bordered 
by blackberry vines and banks of red clay. Here they 
walked in constrained silence until, coming around 
a sudden bend in the road, they saw an approaching 
cart, driven by uncle ’Bias Buford, one of the college 
janitors. Mrs. Wethermore became voluble at once. 

“Such a wonderful year you have had, getting your 
head stocked with so many ideas that I am surprised 
that it hasn’t burst. And what are you going to do 
with it all when you are through, Mr. Collingsworth?” 

Collingsworth sensed the fact that Mrs. Wethermore 


98 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


was violently disturbed, but could think of no good 
reason why. He did not know what to say. 

'‘‘Evenin’, Miss Wethamo; evenin’ Marse Collin- 
wuth,” the old darky greeted, flourishing his crown¬ 
less hat. 

When he was out of hearing the woman resumed 
with more than usual gravity. 

“Now Jeffrey there is an illustration of the weakness 
of your theory. ’Bias will no doubt tell some one that 
we have been walking together, and I will suffer for 
it. Especially since you are an open advocate of free 
love. We must not go out together any more. These 
people will tear my poor reputation to shatters. 

“Why, how can they? What have we done?” he 
demanded. 

“That’s just it, we’ve done nothing, but the 
people’s tongues will make us do everything; they 
can drive me out of town and you out of college if 
they wish. They mustn’t see us together again.” 

“Then I can’t see you—oh damn! I’m awfully 
sorry.” The words were lame, but there were tears in 
his eyes. 

Her moment had come, and she took quick advantage 
of it. Drawing closer she whispered in his ear — 
though, besides these two, there was no one within 
half a mile—“Yes, you may come to see me, foolish 
boy, but it must be at night. Come Saturday nights.” 
(She had thought it all out before)—“enter through 
the back garden gate, and tap, let us say, five times on 
the kitchen door, just so,—that will be our signal.” 

The deviltry of it all appealed to him where the 
dishonesty repelled. He yielded. 

“When may I come?” 

“Well,” with an attempt at coyness, “this is Satur¬ 
day.” 

“Tonight?” 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


99 


“If you really want to come. Do you want me, 
Jeffrey?” Her passion-laden eyes again made some¬ 
thing stir within him. 

“Yes,” he whispered, trembling. 


XIV. 


W ITH pounding temples he ran back to the 
college. The distance was made in an in¬ 
credibly short time. He wondered what it 
was that he was about to do. Why was he going back 
tonight? What more was there to be said? Why 
did the woman vibrate between moods of ice and 
eagerness? How did he annoy her? Did she intend 
to-? 

He dressed for supper. Why in the devil’s name 
was his tie so difficult? He cut his chin in shaving. 
Supper was a mechanical pandemonium in dream-land. 
Some one asked him to pass the butter three times 
before he heard. When the meal was done everybody 
seemed bent on talking to him, and a million people 
wanted him to take a walk. It took him forever to 
get away. 

Once more in the vicinity of Ripple Ford, he became 
very cautious. Why had the entire population of 
that village turned out for a stroll? Everyone who 
glanced at him seemed to say:—“I know where you 
are going, wicked young man. Oh, what are you 
going to do?” With fixed eyes, he walked straight 
through the town as though he had not the least in¬ 
tention of stopping. Out of sight, he doubled back, took 
to the country, and then stole carefully into the alley 
back of the Wethermore cottage. The place was full 
of tin cans that rang like bells. The back garden 
gate opened with a forbidding groan. Jeffrey stumbled 
over a protruding tomato frame, and, at the same in¬ 
stant, passionate cats in a neighboring yard set up a 
frenzied clamour. Sweat broke out all over his body. 




CABLES OF COBWEB 


101 


He wished that he were engaged in dynamiting 
Faculty Row, or wrecking a train,—something easy. 
There flashed across his mind the remembrance of 
his earlier visits to the house, when he had gone in 
by the front gate without a thought of—well,—of 
people. Why was it all so different now? His feet 
thundered on the back veranda. He tapped. Had he 
remembered the right number of raps? 

The door opened. 

“Oh, it is you!” She folded him in her arms. 

Presently she led him into the small dining room 
where, over an alcohol lamp, coffee was steaming. 
Here, for a little time, between sips of coffee and 
bites of cake, Nelly told him how like he was to a 
Greek god, and how she understood his inmost soul, 
and how her husband had never been a real lover. 
Jeffrey would, therefore, be the first really to possess 
her. People were obtuse, and she had been, oh, s*o 
lonely until he came. . . . 

Kisses. 

“Blessed boy.” More kisses. 

“No, you kiss like old women after church. This 
way, open, so.” 

She was a creature of abounding health, and the 
restraints of widowhood, under small town life, had 
been hardly borne. Now that her impulses were, for 
a moment, released she was a fury of passion. And 
Jeffrey was as ignorant and embarrassed a knight as 
ever entered the lists. Still, he having everything to 
learn, and she everything to teach, the bout, though 
brief, was not without its merits. She laid herself 
out to please him. 

So it came to pass that, in a very Victorian room, 
and beneath the portrait of a grimly pious Puritan 
ancestor, that took place which, under the circum¬ 
stances, was very likely, and, indeed, inevitable. And 


102 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Jeffrey came to know, for that the woman was a clean 
and wholesome animal, what Whitman meant when 
he exclaimed— 

“Scent of these armpits, aroma finer than prayer.” 

And the joy he possessed in the fact of passion was 
greater than the joy he had taken in the fancy of free 
love; and because of that he was a little sad. For, 
he reflected, this was a secret thing and a theft for 
which he gave no return to his fellows, and it taught 
nothing. 

The boy had become possessed by the democratic 
conscience, twin sister of Puritanism; and to him, as 
to his kind, it was meet that the secret joy should be 
shared by the multitude, so that there should be 
nothing curious or hid in the whole world. 

Nell was saying to herself:—“By and by he will be 
a creditable lover and do well what nature intended 
him to do.” Aloud she repeated, again and again. 

“You are wonderful!” 

Jeffrey remained in Ripple Ford over Sunday, and 
the blinds of Mrs. Wethermore’s house were closed 
and the shutters drawn. And when the banjo-clock 
struck twelve and Monday was come, he remembered 
that she had named Saturday for their next meeting,— 
and Saturday seemed afar off. 

“Let me come again tonight,” he plead. 

“Don’t be a greedy boy.” 

“But Saturday is such a long time to wait.” 

She hugged him close and gave a very satisfied 
laugh,—“you may come Tuesday,” she conceded. 

For two weeks Jeffrey spent alternate nights at 
Ripple Ford, returning to his room just before the 
break of day. And in that brief period he learned 
more of the art of love than is to be found contained 
in all the volumes of the Kama Shastra Society, and 
became well versed in those things whereof the 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


103 


Shaykh al-Nafzawi makes frequent mention. So that 
the scales fell from his eyes, and he knew that he 
had left Eden. 

Now about the time that the scales fall from one’s 
eyes, by reason of the exercises whereby that is 
accomplished, there often comes a look of langour 
and of much heaviness. Beholding these signs, 
Jeffrey’s masters began to say that he labored too much 
for his good, and to urge that he work less hard. 
Around the commons table there was also talk con¬ 
cerning these things, but it was of a different sort. 
He would be questioned:— 

“Working late these nights, Collingsworth?”— 

“I never find him in any more,” another would in¬ 
terrupt. 

“Perhaps it’s not economics he worries over these 
days,” some one else would suggest,—“the fancy turns 
to other things in springtime, doesn’t it, Jeffrey?” 

“I’ve been preparing a speech for the prelims,” he 
would lie, in some embarrassment. 

“Always go towards Ripple Ford to think about it?” 
inquired another tormentor. 

Jeffrey wondered just how much the last speaker 
knew. Had anyone seen his stealthy back-gate en¬ 
trances? He thought he had been very careful. Per¬ 
haps Painter, the last speaker, who was a surreptitious 
visitor to the one saloon in Ripple Ford, had seen and 
recognized him. Perhaps ’Bias had told. Wisdom 
counselled him to feign indifference to these questions. 
That was the best way to avoid further trouble. But 
he must talk to ’Bias. 

The old darky was cutting dandelions in front of 
Science Hall. 

“Yas sah, it takes resistance to keep out these 
heah docks and plantin’ and dandelions. I dunno what 
de Good Lawd-Amighty evah did make ’em faw.” 


104 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“I suppose, Uncle ’Bias, that you’ve been working 
here a long time?” 

“Yas sah, I reckon I bin heah about sevunty yeah”— 
’Bias was about sixty-five. 

"Good many changes since you came here?” 

"Lawd, yas sah, heap a changes. I wuz heah when 
dey laid the cawnah stone to most of these heah 
buildins.” 

"Changes in the faculty, too, I reckon?” Jeffrey 
went on, hoping to lead the old man to the subject of 
his fears. 

"Yas sah, seems like they’s mo changes that away 
than any othah. They ain’t like they ust to be. Why 
long ago the men whut cum heah knowed putty neah 
everythin’. They haids wuz plum full a knowlidge. 
But now, I ax a professor somethin’ and he sez,— 
‘that ain’t in my depahtment, ’Bias, you’ll have to 
ax professor Whut-yu-may-callum.’ No sah, they ain’t 
like the ole times. An’ none of ’em, not even the bes\ 
could evah ansah one question.” 

"And what was that?” asked Jeffrey. 

The old darky straightened up and scratched his 
head with a cunning smile. "Mebbe you can answer 
it,—Who was Cain’s wife?” It was the old darky’s 
stock question, and Jeffrey admitted defeat. 

"I reckon,” he replied with a smile, "if the smartest 
members of the faculty couldn’t answer, you oughtn’t 
to expect me to. You say the best ones are all dead?” 

"Well, sah,” answered ’Bias with a chuckle,—"the 
good ’uns what dies acknowledges it,—but some 
lingahs on.” 

Jeffrey conceived a better opinion of ’Bias’ power of 
discernment. 

"Let’s see,” he continued, "who was the last member 
of the faculty to die?” 

’Bias scratched his head once more—"I disremem- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


105 


bahs. Wuz it Doctah Henry?—No, I recollects now, 
it wuz that po, dried-up Perfessah Whethahmo; that’s 
the man, yas sah, he was the las’.” 

“Oh yes!” Jeffrey hastened to add,—“that was his 
widow I met a month or so ago over by Ripple Ford. 
She walked out in the hills and caught me practising 
my oration. I believe I met you that same day.” 

“Yas, sah, I recollects, I recollects. Well, I reckon 
that lady wuz too well endowed foh huh man, and 
that’s a fack.” 

“People will talk about widows,” answered Jeffrey, 
reprovingly,—“I think she is a very nice sort, and 
ought not to be gossiped about.” 

“I guess you is right, sah, I guess you is right,” 
replied Uncle ’Bias. “Widder ladies does have a hahd 
time, cause they appetites wuks against they repy- 
tachuns, and them good women at that. But I don’t 
talk about nobody,—no sah. I have hard enuf time 
seein’ that I don’t go to no Bad Place myself. An’ 
even when I sees a male and female a kinda projikin 
around togetha, I sez to mysef,—if they’s not mahied 
folks,—‘ ’Bias, whut belongs to folks, they takes, and 
it don’t hurt nobody’; it’s just the same wif niggahs 
an chickens,—they belongs togethah, and religion ain’t 
agin it. No sah, I don’t believe in meddlin’, no sah.” 

Jeffrey commended the old darky right heartily upon 
his attitude towards scandal-mongering, gave him a 
dollar for tobacco, invited him to come to his room 
for some old clothes, and went away much relieved. 
’Bias had that in his eyes that convinced him. The 
darky’s religion was deeper than a code of morals. 
Being without a formal and forbidding ethic, he was 
full of kindness. ’Bias would never tell. 

That night he slipped away from his room with a 
greater care than ever before, and set out in the direc¬ 
tion of Ripple Ford resolved, to lay bare his fear of 


106 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


discovery and to take counsel for some safer way of 
meeting, if not, indeed, to propose the foregoing of 
their trysts altogether. He must go once more—just 
to tell her that it was unsafe. He must not be the 
means of destroying the one person who had listened 
gravely to his hopes, and whose laughter had, for him, 
held no tone of mockery 

He went a long way around, avoiding paths usually 
frequented by travelers between the two small commu¬ 
nities ; so that it was near to ten o’clock when he came 
to the lane back of Mrs. Wethermore’s house. As he 
approached this entrance of the alley he was startled 
by the glimmer of a lantern, borne somewhat un¬ 
steadily from the end opposite where he stood. He 
turned in instant confusion and made as if to go 
around to the front gate where he thought there might 
be an opportunity for unobserved entrance. A group 
of cypress trees stood on the corner, and through these 
he plunged in frantic haste; but the Fates conspired 
against him, for, as he emerged panting from this 
cover, he stumbled against a trio of men, unrecogniz¬ 
able in the semi-darkness. 

“Beg pardon!” he stammered. 

“Hello! who is this?” questioned a voice which he 
recognized as that of Meadows. 

Before he could excuse himself and get away, a 
match was struck, revealing, beside Meadows, Painter 
and Davidson. There was a moment’s silence. Col¬ 
lingsworth’s face was scarlet. Then Painter:— 

“Well, Collingsworth, been practising a speech?” 

Jeffrey did not join in the laughter that followed. 
He was busily engaged in the serious business of 
searching for an alibi. 

“Kind of strange place to practice oratory,” sug¬ 
gested Meadows, “but I suppose there are some willing 
auditors up here in this town.” 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


107 


Then came the inspiration. There was the saloon 
to which Painter and some of his friends made frequent 
visits; to which, in point of fact. Painter had introduced 
him two years before. This group was, more than 
likely, headed for there now. 

“The fact is,” began Jeffrey, hesitatingly, “I have 
been sneaking up here a good bit lately for a nip of 
booze. I was just dodging a fellow in the back way. 
I don’t think I want to be seen here by too many. Old 
Daniels has spies up here from among the students,— 
some more of this infernal white trash. They stoop 
to anything,”—Jeffrey finished, hoping that the lie 
would impress. 

“Oh! so that’s it. Pve wondered what brought you 
up here so much of late,” exclaimed Painter. “Sly, 
unsociable dog, you won’t drink alone tonight; come 
on and buy us a drink,—we’re bound for there now.” 

Jeffrey saw that he had defeated his immediate object 
by this fabrication, but he hoped that, somehow, by 
this weak prevarication, he might protect Nelly 
Wethermore. He felt in his pocket a crisp ten dollar 
bill with which he had intended to buy a present for 
his mother. Oh, well,perhaps he wouldn’t spend all of it. 

“Surely, come along,” he responded with an attempt 
at eagerness. 

And thus it came about that, in a spirit of bravado 
simulated for a high purpose, the boy was led to a 
real debauch,—his first drunk. For two hours the 
boys drank feverishly, frantically, and, for the most 
part, without enjoyment. They drank in competition. 
At midnight, Stevens, the burly proprietor, announced 
that they must get out. Jeffrey bought a flask of Bour¬ 
bon and the quartet departed, with uncertain feet, in 
the direction of Wythe. About three o’clock they 
reached the campus, singing with unconscious appro¬ 
priateness, “I was seeing Nellie home.” 


108 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Les’ wake ’em up!” cried one. 

“Awright, heave away,” another assented. 

Thereat, with one accord, and with occasional 
disastrous results, they began throwing whatever they 
could lay fumbling hands upon at the windows. The 
whole campus was aroused by the clamour. Heads 
appeared, and sleepy voices began to inquire what all 
the rumpus meant. 

“Give it to ’em, Jeffrey, ole boy!” shouted Meadows. 
Someone, from an upper window, sensing the situation, 
and now being bereft of sleep, discharged a gun, hoping 
to achieve the double purpose of frightening the rioters 
and of making others as uncomfortably wide awake 
as himself. The shot partly sobered the returning 
youths, and so, with much groping and profanity, 
they found their respective dormitories; and, finally, 
without the formality of undressing, tumbled into bed. 

The following day, there was called, at the chapel 
hour, a special faculty meeting at which all four of 
the youths were summarily expelled,—“for excessive 
drunkenness and the wilful destruction of college 
property, either of which, under a ruling made in 1874, 
merits expulsion of itself, and constitutes a violation 
not only of the spirit of this institution, but also of the 
laws of our state.” They were told to be off the 
campus within twenty-four hours. 

Jeffrey’s face burned as with a flame. “Oh, Lord!” 
he thought, as the realization of the depth of this dis¬ 
grace came over him,—“if I w T ere being put out for 
some principle it might be worth it; but to be expelled 
for getting drunk;—how awful!” 

He had weathered the storms of opposition for three 
years, battling for his unconventional ideas, and had 
enjoyed the struggle; he was now being wrecked for 
upholding a very dear conventional ideal in a very 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


109 


unhappy manner. He was scarcely able to walk away 
from the chapel. 

Four frantic telegrams were sent off that day and 
answers were received. Three of the boys were com¬ 
manded, by return messages, to come on home. Jeffrey 
Collingsworth’s answer came a few hours later:— 

“You have disgraced your father. Shift for yourself. 
Expect no help from me.” 

Jeffrey had just four dollars left over from the ten 
of the previous day. When he had recovered himself 
sufficiently he took stock of his possessions. He would 
sell most of the books, all, indeed, of the text books. 
He would reserve, for his own, a Keats, a Coleridge, 
a Sir Thomas Brown, Marx’s Das Kapital, and Spen¬ 
cer’s First Principles. One of the men in the dormitory 
paid him two dollars for the remainder. His student 
lamp fetched another two, and his furniture he let go 
for ten, making a total of eighteen dollars with which 
to face a very uncertain future. 

He looked up ’Bias, confided to that ancient philoso¬ 
pher his troubles, and asked if he would convey his 
trunk and suitcase to Ripple Ford. He would board 
for a few days at the Bentley House, a ramshackled 
hostelry, equally remarkable for cheapness and dirt. 
’Bias was all sympathy. 

“Lawd Gawd, boy, you sho has raised a catawampus 
fo yo self,” he exclaimed, “and on top of it all, yo paw 
ain’t goin’ to let you come home? Well, well, some 
payants suttenly is cuyous, they suttenly is. Of coase 
I’ll take yo things ovah to Ripple Ford; but what in 
the name of goodness does you want to go to that 
good fo nothin’ place foh?” Jeffrey explained that this 
catastrophe had fallen upon him unexpectedly, and 
that, since he had no plans and little money, he wanted 
to get somewhere nearby so that he could think it 


110 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


over. The faculty order to get out must be obeyed at 
once. 

“Edgecation suttinly do make hahd hearts,” ’Bias 
commented with energy. “Well, sah, I’ll get yo things 
out of heah at foh o’clock this evenin’, yas sah.” 

Some of the fellows came around to his room during 
the afternoon, and swore mightily that they would 
avenge this outrage by getting the student body to 
resign en masse; but no one of them had anything 
practical to suggest for Jeffrey’s next step. There were 
regretful goodbyes, but the boy was so dazed by the 
thing that had come upon him that, for once, the usual 
sentimentalism and ordinary heart-aches were unfelt. 
He was to set out at once for Ripple Ford where there 
would be friendship and understanding. He left the 
dormitory rather stiffly, conscious of curious gazes and 
of disapproval, withering under it all, but feigning to 
be unconcerned and hard. As he stepped out upon the 
campus a diminuitive darky approached, bearing a 
note. 

“Is you Mistah Collingswuf ?” 

“I am,” more haughtily than usual. 

“Fessah Fitzpatrick say heahs a note.” 

Jeffrey unfolded the bit of writing paper, now soiled 
by the grimy hand:—“Come over for a few minutes 
before it is legally (!) too late. Don’t do anything 
more foolish than what you have done already”—he 
read. 

“Good old boy! Perhaps he will suggest a way out 
of this mess,” thought Jeffrey. Feeling more secure 
already, he handed the pickaninny a quarter. 

“I suppose you have no plans?” began Fitzpatrick, 
after Jeffrey had seated himself in the corner of the 
rather unkempt study. 

“Not an idea of one, sir.” 

“What exactly is your situation?” 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


111 


Jeffrey explained. 

“Haven’t you a host of relatives scattered up and 
down the Valley of Virginia?” 

“All my family are religious and conservative, and 
I think that this is as good a time as any to get out 
and quit making trouble. If I go to them for help they 
will certainly insist upon my respecting their opinions. 
I want to go North.” 

Fitzpatrick had hoped that Collingsworth’s eccen¬ 
tricities would have evaporated by the end of his So¬ 
phomore year. Evidently they had not. He wondered 
just what he could do to help the boy find himself, for 
there was a certain wistfulness and idealism about 
him that was rare. It was a pity that he should go to 
waste. 

“What you need, young man, is to finish your col¬ 
lege course—you have only a little more than one year 
left—and then, after that, you should have two or three 
years of stiff graduate work to give you some balance.” 

Jeffrey was in no mood to quibble or question. He 
nodded assent. 

“But, of course,” Fitzpatrick went on, “all our 
Southern colleges will refuse to take you unless you 
have the support of Wythe, and that is out of the 
question. I assume that you would like to get your 
degree? 

Jeffrey would. 

“Then, if that is the case, I happen to know a man 
who was at Johns Hopkins with me, Doctor Ernest 
Goddard, a sympathetic fellow if there ever was one, 
and I believe I can get him to help you. He is the 
president of Argyle College which is located at a town 
in Illinois of the same name. Argyle is not exactly a 
popular college, is, in fact, very liberal, has a good 
endowment, and, from what I have heard, the town is 
large enough to give some employment to students. 


112 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


You can work your way through. It is not a disgrace 
up there. Do you want to try it?” 

Jeffrey pictured his father’s discomfiture in the event 
of his succeeding to get a degree without parental 
assistance, and he was at once eager to take advantage 
of this Heaven-sent opportunity. 

“Of course I’ll try it,” he agreed. 

“But you will need money?” 

“I have enough to take me there.” 

This was a lie, and Fitzpatrick suspected as much, 
but wisely held his tongue, and, without further ado, 
wrote a letter of introduction to President Goddard. 

“I think the best plan for you under the circum¬ 
stances, Collingsworth,” he said, when he had finished 
writing, “is to proceed at once to Argyle before their 
commencement. You have a month to get there, and 
Goddard may be able to find you something for the 
summer. Meantime, there is no need for telling you 
that while you may be more radical up in Illinois, you 
will also have to be more temperate. The solid middle 
classes abhor the vices of gentlemen even more than 
Southern Presbyterians. Also, I will ask that you say 
nothing of my action in letters to your home. My 
wife happens to own a plantation in the Mill Creek 
country, quite near that of your father, and I may want 
to settle down there when I am old!” 

The letter felt good in his pocket. It was like carry¬ 
ing a Testament over one’s heart when going into a 
battle. Life wasn’t so bad after all, for at last he was 
really and truly free. His father could never dictate 
again, and he was now escaping the bondage of every 
narrow dogma in the world. In his fancy the South 
was already behind him—the South with its lynching, 
its sentimentalism, its eternal harping about family, 
its lingering fondness for feudalism, its vast ignorance, 
its narrow protestantism. Fie had freedom and at 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


113 


least two friends. Some philosopher or other had said 
that in the possession of these two things alone lay 
enough for happiness. And now, best of all, he was 
going to Nellie! 

And, as he went along his way, the lichen on the 
rail fence was silver gray, and the birds sang “We- 
who-we,—wehoo,” in an ecstasy of self-admiration. 
And the song in his heart was “Nellie, Nellie, Nellie!” 
For the boy was young, and but a little thing was 
needful to revive hope and awaken joy. 


XV 


T HE room at the Bentley House was dingy, and 
the red-flowered paper was torn from the walls, 
here and there, and was suspiciously black and 
greasy at spots against which the split bottomed chairs 
had been set. The place smelled of hash and burnt 
beans and stale tobacco. True to promise, ’Bias had 
brought his luggage,—a service for w T hich he stub¬ 
bornly refused compensation. And now, after a mis¬ 
erable supper, he made himself ready to bear tidings 
to the woman who would understand and comfort. 

As soon as he entered the room she sensed his ex¬ 
citement and knew that there was a story. He told 
it eagerly, even melodramatically, while over her face 
went changes not noticed by his untutored eye. When 
he had done, and had left off - walking the floor as a 
rostrum, she began. 

So he was expelled! What a disgrace! Why, he was 
mad, wild, selfish and weak. Let him not deceive him¬ 
self with the thought that he had done this thing for 
her. He was silly. Why had he talked so much of 
strange notions that were abhorred by everyone who 
had power?—she harped on power constantly. . . .—These 
people might be stupid in some ways, but they had an 
instinct for wisdom. When you wanted a thing you 
should keep your mouth shut about it. That was the 
way to get it. One had to do things not provided for 
in the rules, but one was a fool to flaunt the rules in 
people’s faces. One must choose. He was not a re¬ 
former, but a poet,—a mad, mad poet. And now he 
was cast loose from his father, and his education,— 
everything. Of course if he had been of age and had 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


115 


had money it would be different. ... Yes, she had 
spoken once, perhaps oftener, of his getting away, but 
it had been of getting away, and not of being sent 
away in disgrace. Her voice rose in crescendo. 

“And then why, of all places, did you come here to 
Ripple Ford? They will know that you have been 
here with me. They will drive me out next. Oh, what 
a fool you are/’ 

“But I thought you-” 

“No, Jeffrey, you never thought. That is what’s the 
matter with you. You never think. You sent your 
things up here so that you could come to me and get 
comfort and be approved; you didn’t stop to think of 
my side at all—of how a woman in my position is 
always suspected.” Hysterical tears gathered them¬ 
selves on the ends of her eyelashes w’here they trem¬ 
bled in sympathetic agitation. 

Jeffrey felt as though he had swallowed a large 
doorknob, and that it was being wrenched and twisted 
in his insides. Something made him want to stay and 
be tortured. Part of him agreed with the accusations 
that the woman brought, and another part suspected 
a thing which he was unable to define. He felt that 
his heart had swollen to the breaking point and then 
had burst; it felt quite withered within him now. 
But at last, unable to endure the torment and the 
woman’s tears, he summoned his self-respect. He got 
up. And as he began to speak, his voice sounded 
strange and far off. He could hardly believe the words 
that he uttered :—“I am very sorry, madam, that I have 
intruded upon you and caused you pain. I will hasten 
to make amends. I shall not trouble you again. To- 
mprrow I am going away.” Tears were coming, and 
his tears must not be seen. 

“Good night, madam,” he said, as he reached for his 
hat. 



116 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Oh, yes, now you are angry and self-righteous, and 
you are thinking that I am all wrong,—Jeffrey, you’ve 
got to listen.” 

“Good night,” he repeated. 

As he passed the bedroom door he seemed to catch, 
through his dimmed eyes, a glimpse of Nellie’s puritan 
ancestor. On the dour face was a smirk of satisfac¬ 
tion. The “Thou—shalt—nots” were having an inn¬ 
ing. Jeffrey closed the door on the woman’s sobs. He 
never noticed that he was leaving by the front way. 

That night in the dingy room, where the kerosene 
lamp smoked, and the floor creaked beneath every 
weary footfall, a very miserable youth was trying to 
reconstruct his shattered world. Surely nothing was 
worth while, and, least of all, himself. Every good 
thing was gone out of his life,—his gentle, sweet 
mother; the beautiful home of his childhood memories; 
and, now, at last, the woman in whom he had believed 
so utterly, with whom he had dreamed of living in 
sweet accord with the new morality. His assurance 
was all gone, and he could see nothing in the future 
but black chasms of emptiness. His emancipation, 
which, a few hours before, he had greeted with a shout, 
seemed to him now a dreadful banishment to a scene 
of unknown horrors and frightful aloneness. He re¬ 
called stories of the inhospitality and coldness of the 
North. He was journeying to a strange and far off 
country, and his sole capital was a letter. This docu¬ 
ment seemed no longer a shield of protection. He 
would doubtless become a vagabond and starve. All 
the charm and warmth, all the virtues of Virginia were 
now present before him. He forgot his quondam scorn 
for his native state. Virginia was home, and had been 
the dear home of all his forebears since before the 
Revolution. He had never been out of it save for two 
brief visits into Tennessee and Georgia. He shuddered 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


117 


at the memory of those visits, remembering shabby 
farm houses, bare-swept yards, fallen fences, stunted 
cattle, snuff-dipping wenches, laziness, ignorance and 
vulgarity. The people in Virginia might have grown 
ignorant, since the Civil War, but they had distinction. 
There were gentlemen in Virginia. With one or two 
exceptions, there had been no such negrophobia as 
existed in Georgia and the far South. It was left for 
trash to descend to such hatreds. The benevolent tol¬ 
erance and kindliness of his grandfather stood out in 
contrast to the kind of fiendish race-hatred that raged 
in the meaner states. 

In this mood of regretful retrospect, Jeffrey’s father 
came in for a kinder thought than he usually received. 
An afternoon was recalled when Jeffrey, then a small 
boy of ten, had gone over the fields for a long walk 
with his father. Rhoda had given him a cabbage stalk, 
and suddenly, three miles from home, there had de¬ 
scended upon his small body a most violent belly¬ 
ache. He had wept with the pain of it, and his father 
had very tenderly carried him on his back, and told 
stories and laughed and comforted him all that long 
and weary way over the hills; and then, when they 
had reached the house, his father had borne him up 
the stairs to his little room, had fetched medicines and 
poultices and read him to sleep. This memory came 
near to breaking Jeffrey’s pride. He was tempted to 
write to his father and ask to be forgiven. But then 
he pictured the return, the mortifications, the neces¬ 
sary explanations, the meetings with his friends, the 
cool disapprovals, the necessary acts of repentance, 
and the humiliating references at family prayers. He 
would have to get rid of his books, and there would be 
sneering remarks about all the philosophies for which, 
during the past three years, he had stood, a feeble but 
passionate champion. No, he couldn’t do it. He must 


118 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


go on, even to destruction. And now he was utterly 
alone. The woman had put him out forever. 

All night these things ran through his mind; and 
one thing would rise up to contradict another, impulse 
paralyzing impulse. It was maddening. And as the 
constant accompaniment of these conflicts, the tender 
memories rose up and scorched like cruel flames. Per¬ 
haps he might forget some things.—But the last—the 
woman! Why, he had held her so close!—The inti¬ 
macies, the caresses,—how could it all end in such a 
manner? It was unbelievable. She had called him a 
god,—him! He was ruined. What was it that the 
Passionate Pilgrim had said?— 

“Her lips to mine how often hath she joined? 
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing! 
How many tales to please me hath she coined, 
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing! 
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings 
Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were 
jestings.” 

So, sleepless, went the night,—and his eyes were 
red and aching, and lines were on his face. Near dawn 
he threw himself on the uninviting bed. His head 
ached. Confused images passed before him:—old 
Webb,—Rhoda,—fields covered with snow,—shivering 
cattle,—the Mill Creek springhouse,—the title page of 
First Principles. The streaked red roses on the wall 
were intermingled with the procession of his fancies. 
He fell asleep just as the light of the morning sun 
began to make weird shadows about the room. 

Overhead, a satisfied female spider began to make 
breakfast of her late husband. 


XVI 


“ Ik 11 T E used often to speak together at Johns 
Hopkins,” wrote Fitzpatrick to his friend 
* " Goddard, “of the strange differences that 
exist here in the South, and of how it lacks the homo- 
genity that one might expect in an old state. The 
young man I have directed towards your more hos¬ 
pitable academic shelter is a curious blend of some 
old elements which, for the most part, are quite antag¬ 
onistic; and I am curious to see the result. About 
nine-tenths of him is cavalier, gentlemen, of good 
English stock, imported into this state some time prior 
to our first unpleasantness with Great Britain. These 
were easy-going gentry who toiled not for their pos¬ 
sessions, but who were ready'to fight for them, on oc¬ 
casion. They belonged to the English Church, sir, 
sent their sons to William and Mary, and took life and 
mint julep with moderation. But at one time in the 
ancestry of Collingsworth’s father, there was intro¬ 
duced some Huguenot blood, and, a little later, the 
boy’s grandfather married one of the daughters of a 
mountain white (not a ‘‘poor white” by a damnsight, 
as you may remember my pointing out),—Scotch 
Irish, and full of Cromwellian nonconformity. The 
grandfather, who had already lowered the family es¬ 
cutcheon by attending this Presbyterian college—a 
circumstance due no doubt, to that drop of cursed 
Huguenot blood—, now joined his wife’s church and 
thus brought an end to a very respectable family tra¬ 
dition. S The outcome of this singular union, John 
Collingsworth, is a clergyman who, while a gentleman 
in every other particular, is Cromwellian and vulgar 


120 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


in respect to his faith; he is, in a word, zealous, en¬ 
thusiastic, fervent—not of the Church, but of the 
chapel, as the English would say. This zeal, I suspect, 
arises from the conflict within him, between the aris¬ 
tocrat and the commoner. The conflict begets doubt, 
and the doubt, in such a man, causing fear, gives rise 
to an almost fanatic reiteration of beliefs that are con¬ 
trary to at least half of his soul and to most of his 
early environment. He has tried to cram this stiff re¬ 
ligion into the head and heart of a son whose mother 
is altogether of the leisurely old stock of these valleys 
and not disposed to sternness. The result is curious. 
The small spark of nonconformity in the boy’s make¬ 
up, has been fanned into a flame of hatred; Cromwell 
contra Cromwell. He hates all that his father loves. 
He is a socialist, an agnostic, a would-be Yankee, and 
even affects a peculiar northern accent. Left alone he 
might have been a gentleman, and would no doubt 
have come to settle upon the estate of his grandfather 
and to do honor to the rapidly passing traditions of 
his race. He may revert to it yet, when time has 
passed and opposition is no longer apparent. I have 
seen such things happen, but this is the most extreme 
case that I know, and is therefore the reason for this 

long letter.I hope that he has it in him to work 

his way to your door, and I am confident that, if he 
does, he will be able to accomplish the rest. I am 
sending, herewith, a list of his credits which I have 
dug out of the books at the college office, and I will 
trust you to take my unofficial word for them. This 
institution will not, of course, give him a certifi- 


“And so,” chuckled Professor Fitzpatrick to him¬ 
self, “I have contrived to make a fitting end of the day. 
I have violated the ethics of the faculty, outraged the 




CABLES OF COBWEB 


121 


honor of the president, thrown discredit upon the in¬ 
stitution for which I work, helped to undermine re¬ 
ligion and social justice, hindered the possible repent¬ 
ance of a hard-headed youth, and insulted' the South: 
—altogether a fruitful piece of educational work.” 

So saying, the good man rose, and, after drawing the 
shades, reached high up on his book shelf and took 
down volume one of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary; 
reached again and brought down a flask of good 
brandy and a small glass. “ ‘For thy stomach’s sake,’ 
Timothy,” he whispered to himself. 


XVII 


J EFFREY had no particular desire to go anywhere 
just now, but he had a very definite reason for 
getting away from where he was. Argyle was a 
possible place, thanks to the kindness of Fitzpatrick, 
and he might as well set out at once and go as far as 
his money would allow. He grudgingly paid one dol¬ 
lar for his night’s lodging and his two meals, and then, 
taking his suitcase went across to the station. A dollar 
and a half would take him as far as Bristol. He de¬ 
cided not to ask the agent about anything farther, 
fearing to leave any trace of his destination. He might 
let them know if he succeeded, but in the event of a 
failure, he wished to be unmarked of all. He borrowed 
the agent’s hand-truck and fetched his trunk from the 
hotel. Not once did he trust himself to even so much 
as glance at the little cottage across the way which 
had been the scene of his great tragedy. 

Once in Bristol he made inquiries concerning the 
cost of a ticket to Argyle. He didn’t have half enough 
for the fare. After a moment’s thought, he decided to 
ship his trunk by freight. That would cost but three 
dollars. The agent told him it might take a month to 
get to its destination, but as Jeffrey, for all he knew, 
might take two months en route, the delay did not 
matter. To save himself needless encumbrance he 
opened the trunk on the platform, and piled in most of 
the contents of his suitcase, reserving a few things, 
and making a compact bundle such as he had seen 
tramps carrying. Into this small bundle of necessaries, 
he slipped, for some sentimental reason, his battered 
copy of Religio Medici. He did not, at the time, know 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


123 


that it was a first edition, and worth double the price 
of a ticket to Illinois. The trunk shipped, the next 
thing w r as to sell his empty suitcase. At a second-hand 
store near the depot he received one dollar for a hand¬ 
bag that had but recently cost fifteen, and was barely 
worn. He next took himself to a lunch counter and 
there spent five cents for a cup of coffee and another 
five for a stale sandwich. A man sitting on the next 
stool began to talk of the hard times and of the diffi¬ 
culty that some of his friends had encountered in find¬ 
ing employment. The world, according to this dis¬ 
gruntled person, was going to the bad. Encouraged 
by this friendly pessimism Jeffrey ventured to inquire 
of him concerning the cheapest way of getting north. 

“Where d’ ye wanta go?” asked the man. 

“Cincinnati first, and then to Springfield, Illinois.” 

“How much money ye got?” 

Jeffrey looked at the questioner sharply and began 
to be afraid that the man might rob him of the little 
that he had. Perhaps this man was a thief!—“Five 
dollars,” he lied. 

The man laughed. “You won’t get very far on that,” 
he said, wiping the coffee from his dripping mustache. 
“Want to come with me and try to get a job? There 
ain’t many, but you might be able to find somethin’ 
for a day or two.” 

Jeffrey was now sure that the fellow wanted to get 
him out where he could hold him up. “No, I have no 
time to lose, thank you, I want to get away from here 
today,” he replied decisively. 

It was now the man’s turn to glance suspiciously at 
this well-groomed youngster who seemed in such a 
hurry to get out of town. “Was he a pickpocket?” he 
wondered. He gobbled down his last bit of pie noisily, 
pushed some small change over the counter and with— 


124 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Well, I guess I can’t help you then,” got up from 
his seat and left the restaurant. 

Resolved to keep his own counsel, Jeffrey returned 
to the station and studied the dirty map in the waiting 
room. Railway maps are very misleading as to dis¬ 
tance and direction, and Jeffrey was new to the task 
of directing himself, so that the route that he chose 
was far from the straight line it looked on the chart 
before him. He would go across town and board a 
train to Big Stone Gap, then double back to Bluefield, 
proceed north to Cincinnati, and, finally, west to 
Springfield. Once there, he could easily find his way 
to Argyle. 

He got a train out of Bristol that afternoon, and a 
few hours later made his next stop, Big Stone Gap, 
where he was forced to wait over until late the follow¬ 
ing morning before going on to Bluefield. After he 
had eaten breakfast on the succeeding day, Jeffrey sent 
a post card to his mother. He wanted to write a letter, 
but he feared that he might betray, by some careless 
word, his actual situation, and thus increase the weight 
of her care. The brief statement,—“I am going North,” 
might convey the impression that he was riding com¬ 
fortably in a Pullman car, and eating three good meals 
a day. He hoped that she might so imagine it. The 
actual case was that, after arriving at Bluefield, he 
should have to save the few dollars he had left for 
food, and contrive to either steal rides on a freight, or 
to go to work for a while, to earn some more money. 

Once at Bluefield, Jeffrey decided to make an at¬ 
tempt to get aboard a north-bound freight. If unsuc¬ 
cessful he would look about in the little city for a job. 
Fortifying himself with a good meal, he walked to¬ 
ward the freight yard with a bounding heart. He didn’t 
know just how to go about stealing a ride, and he 
feared falling into the hands of some yard policeman. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


125 


It was not quite dark. Several trains were being made 
up; noisy switch engines were puffing back and forth, 
flinging helpless cars into one another and making a 
terrific din. Brakemen waved unintelligible signals 
with their arms and shouted expressive profanity with 
their mouths. A little further down the line a long 
train was stopping at the tower for final orders. It had 
the appearance of a through freight. To Jeffrey the 
only difference between a through and a local freight 
was a matter of the length. Of all the crew, only the 
conductor was in sight, and he was now on the side of 
the tower. Here, thought Jeffrey, was an excellent 
chance. He crossed the track back of the caboose and 
ran forward to a flat car loaded with crated machinery. 
At first glance it seemed to offer a good hiding place. 
In a moment he was up the side and crowding between 
two enormous crates. A few minutes later the train 
was creaking and grinding its way out of the yard. 
Jeffrey was just making up his mind that stealing a 
ride is child’s play, when a loud voice from somewhere 
up above began with :— 

“Hey there, you damned tramp, git out of there. I 
saw ye. Hustle out or I’ll shoot!” 

Without pondering over this invitation, Jeffrey 
backed out of his hiding place with no inconsiderable 
alacrity, and with feet made unsteady by fright and 
the swaying of the cars, rose and looked for the spokes¬ 
man. A big, sooty-faced man in blue overalls stood on 
the box car ahead, and waved his brake-stick threat¬ 
eningly.— 

“Well, don’t stand there and stare at me. Climb 
down! Jump, before I come down there and git ye.” 
The train seemed just now to be going altogether too 
fast to allow a safe descent, but to leap was probably 
less dangerous than to risk the anger of the trainman; 
so, holding his bundle in front of his face for protec- 


126 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


tion, he jumped, struck the ground on his feet, flung 
forward and rolled down a rocky embankment, landing 
finally against a fence which brought him up with a 
thump. 

“Are you hurt?—I say, are you hurt?” 

Jeffrey got to his feet in some trepidation lest the 
speaker should prove to be another enemy. But the 
disarming grin on the face of the inquirer standing on 
the bank above—a young man who looked no older 
than he,—not alone dispelled fear; it invited confidence. 

“I think no bones are broken,” he answered, begin¬ 
ning to brush the dirt and weeds from his clothes, 
“but my dignity has been pretty badly upset, and my 
hands are scratched by this infernal fence. Thank for¬ 
tune, my trousers are not torn!” he finished, recover¬ 
ing his bundle and scrambling up the embankment. 

“Damn shame, throwing you off that way,” com¬ 
mented the stranger. “Are you going far, or just hav¬ 
ing a spree?” 

Not many minutes had passed before Jeffrey, driven 
by the need for counsel and confession in this strange 
world in which he found himself, had been induced to 
relate his entire story. 

“And now I suppose I’ll have to stay here in Blue- 
field and get a job,” he said, as he finished the recital. 

“Naw, stow the gloom. We’ll get out of here to¬ 
night.” 

“Are you going north, too?” inquired Jeffrey, in 
some surprise and encouraged by his companion’s use 
of the plural pronoun. 

“Chicago,” answered the newcomer, who had intro¬ 
duced himself as Alexander McKaig. “All you need,” 
he went on, “is a little experience. Of course you’ll be 
pinched if you try to hop a freight in broad day; and, 
then, this is no place to pick up a through freight. I 
am making Graham, about a mile beyond. Just above 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


127 


there is a steep grade where you can choose your berth 
at leisure. There’ll be a good train along in about a 
couple of hours. The one you were on is a local, tak¬ 
ing supplies to the coal fields. You stick with me, and 
we’ll make Chicago in a week.” 

McKaig was a very queer person to Jeffrey. Genial, 
good looking, with a fine sense of humor, he was, by 
turns, a street urchin, a revolutionist proposing to 
overthrow the government, and a critic of letters,— 
recommending Flaubert, Stendhal and Oscar Wilde, 
or excoriating Emerson and Rudyard Kipling. He 
wore, to all appearances, a suit of baggy blue denim 
overalls, but beneath these, as Jeffrey discovered on 
the first occasion of their dining together, were very 
respectable worsteds, and, as a Piece de Resistance, a 
gorgeous tie in the colors of the peacock. Born in the 
north of Ireland, he had run away to sea, come to 
America, joined the army through inability to find more 
congenial employment, deserted on an occasion when 
his company had been sent to Pennsylvania to break 
a strike; served, in consequence, a term at Leaven¬ 
worth,—the sentence being mitigated on account of 
his youth and previous record—, had been assistant 
librarian at the prison; and was now, according to his 
somewhat general description, a labor agitator. He 
had come south to work among the miners on the 
Elkhorn, and finding that he could accomplish but 
little, had gone to Norfolk, and was now enroute to 
some radical headquarters in Chicago. At twenty-five, 
he had had more experience than most men have at 
fifty. 

“I don’t blame you, boy,” he said, on one of the days 
when, snugly housed in a half empty box car, they 
were on their way towards Cincinnati, “for leaving 
that god-forsaken South of yours. For sheer bone¬ 
headed ignorance it leads the world. The Methodists 


128 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


can have it for all of me. Why, the working stiffs 
down there are worse than slaves,—they are boot¬ 
licking sheep-dogs. They would thank their masters 
to beat them. They have never read anything. Most 
of them can’t even sign their own names. It’ll take a 
hundred years to make a revolution down there.” 

“But the socialists’ propaganda-” 

“Damn the socialists. They’re too slow. I’m a so¬ 
cialist all right. Here is my red card, stamped down 
to date, but I’m getting jolly well tired of their infernal 
political action, and windy election speeches. Every¬ 
thing must wait, according to them, until all the po¬ 
tentialities of the capitalist system are worked out, 
and all you have to do in the meantime is to distribute 
pamphlets and make Marxian speeches in preparation 
for the great day. All rot! Darwinism has done as 
much harm as good to the movement by spreading the 
notion of gradual change; and the socialists haven’t 
waked up to De Vries yet. Then they’re always spout¬ 
ing about the beauty and joy of work, and glorifying 
Millet in the sob-sister style of Edwin Markham. They 
get that stuff from William Morris and Ruskin,—all 
middle class fol-de-rol. There is nothing beautiful in 
work as work. I don’t want to work.” 

This was heresy to Jeffrey who, coming from those 
who had inherited without toil, had been taught to 
think of the work of others with vast reverence. 

“Every one must do a share of work if we are to 
live,” he objected. 

“Let machinery do the ugly work, then people will 
have time for beautiful things; for the making of books 
and pictures,” was McKaig’s reply. 

Jeffrey felt that even if people did have abundant 
leisure, very few would turn to the making of beauti¬ 
ful books or paintings. He knew many people who 
had leisure and any amount of academic training, but 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


129 


among them he could not think of one who had pro¬ 
duced a book fit to read, or a picture that was not 
hideous. Young women, in the interim between grad¬ 
uation and marriage, drew ghastly crayon portraits of 
their pastors, or daubed a sentimental old water wheel. 
The preacher left a volume of unread sermons and a 
heavily illustrated memoir of his dull life; and the 
teacher prepared a text book of algebra or a hand-book 
of horticultural science. 

“That,” answered McKaig, “is because people are 
not free. Conventionality and slavery have combined 
to make everybody dull. When any one class is slave, 
nobody is free, and there isn’t joy enough to inspire 
creative effort, except in the isolated genius. But there 
is going to be a great big upheaval in this country be¬ 
fore very long, and then you’ll see what the common 
people can do. And unless the socialists quit talking 
politics and begin to act, they won’t be in at the finish. 
Have you read about the General Confederation of 
Labor, and what the French radicals are doing?” 

Jeffrey had not. 

“Well, they.” 

And McKaig went on from hour to hour telling of 
the things that were to be done to this wickedly stupid 
old world when the revolutionists should be in power. 
Now and then he would pause to answer a question in 
his offhand manner—questions relating to the origin 
of the cosmos being as easily settled as the labor prob¬ 
lem. He punctuated his discourse upon origins by 
occasionally lighting a cigarette. His listener grew a 
bit tired of the quarrels of unionism and would sug¬ 
gest other themes. 

“Do you like Walt Whitman?” 

“I did until the women’s clubs and professional op¬ 
timists took him up; now he rather bores me with his 
unceasing chants. Same thing happened to Fitzgerald. 



130 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


The Rubaiyat was a fine thing till everybody began 
mouthing it, and putting spiritual allegories in the 
place of spirituous allegros. I wish Swinburne and 
Rossetti had left it alone in the book-seller’s bin. 
Everybody pretends to read it now, and it has become 
as respectable as Bobby Browning. Ever read Ernest 
Dowson? He wrote one great poem: ‘Non sum qualis 
eram bonae sub Regno Cynarae’—I love that line be¬ 
ginning—‘I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my 
fashion.’ ” 

McKaig sighed appropriately. “I have been faithful 
to several ‘Cynaras,’ but hang it all, I won’t tell dirty 
stories.” 

On the third day after leaving Bluefield, these curi¬ 
ous tramps stole forth from their secure hiding place 
while the train was slowing down somewhere in the 
suburbs of Cincinnati. Escaping safely from the vi¬ 
cinity of the railroad, they managed to refresh them¬ 
selves at any number of free-lunch counters in the city 
and were able, thanks to the generalship of the Irish¬ 
man, to ride out that night on the front of the bag¬ 
gage-car of a westbound passenger train. For over a 
hundred miles they rode, buffeted by a cold wind and 
hot cinders. Sleep was, of course, out of the question. 
They were compelled to hold on for their lives. At 
last the train stopped on the outskirts of a small town 
for water, and as it slowed down McKaig signaled to 
his half frozen companion to jump. Jeffrey was almost 
too numb to move, but his landing was, if not more 
graceful, at least more successfully accomplished than 
the one at Bluefield. 

“I’m going to walk a while,” he announced with 
firmness, rubbing his stiffened limbs—“after this I 
vote for riding on freights.” 

McKaig laughed. “As for me I am thankful that the 
tank is on the west side of the burg,” he commented. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


131 


“If we walk ahead a little way we will come to the 
farm land where we may be sure of finding a haystack 
and can bed down with the cows for a bit. Then we’ll 
come back here for a freight after we have rested.” 

The idea was almost as welcome as the straw rick 
which they were presently able to make out by the 
light of the moon. And when at last they were safely 
buried in their prickly bed, Jeffrey felt more royally 
couched than if he had lain upon a bed of down. His 
hand clutched at the bundle, which he was now using 
for a pillow, and he felt the unyielding covers of Religio 
Medici. He smiled at the thought of Sir Thomas 
Browne, an agitator, and an outcast lying thus to¬ 
gether in a pile of straw. 


XVIII 


ROM over the cedar crowned mountain tops 
Pi above Mill Creek came the intermittent rumbles 
of thunder from the retreating storm. Here 
and there the serried ranks of clouds were breaking, 
and the few reluctant drops of rain that fell upon the 
rolling land in the valley beneath were as a farewell 
salute. A crafty company of crows, compelled for a 
time to seek the shelter of a convenient woodland, were 
beginning to caw their signals for recommencing their 
unfinished labors on the sprouting corn. Across the 
valley, running north and south, was a long red ribbon 
of roadway, having, just now, a surface very like soft 
wax; a circumstance that proved quite trying to the 
belated postman’s horse in his efforts to drag a be¬ 
spattered cart overweighed by a ponderous driver and 
a ridiculously small parcel of mail. The driver, Mr. 
Lemuel Tatum, was in an irritable mood. He was 
later than usual; but that was of no matter to one 
with his disposition and philosophy of life; he was 
very wet, in consequence of a bulk that defied his 
dingy water proof, and of the grudging movements 
necessary for depositing copies of the Farm Journal, 
or Comfort in the boxes along the way,—but while 
any degree of wetness exaggerated his asthma, and was 
a contributary cause to his present mood, it could be, 
in some measure, counteracted by a liberal three fin¬ 
gers from a flask at his mountain home; but what he 

could not abide was the lack of sociability- 

“After me a drivin’ seven mile in the rain to tote 
mail to ’em all, the least a feller could do would be to 




CABLES OF COBWEB 


133 


be sociable like,” he grumbled to himself. “I wonder 
what’s got into the old preacher? Git up, Cap!” 

The object of this mild explosion was trudging 
wearily homeward from the roadside post box near 
which he had passed back and forth, oblivious of the 
rain, for fully an hour. A tall man, with nervous fin¬ 
gers that snapped as he walked, Mr. Collingsworth, 
usually so careful about the fitness of things, made a 
grotesque figure in a clinging frock suit, drenched for 
the want of a forgotten umbrella, and an abused silk 
hat put on in utter abandon. His thin patent leather 
pumps were ill-suited to the mud under foot and, now 
and again, threatened to remain fast in the sticky mire. 
Of all these things the man seemed wholly unconscious 
as he proceeded down the lane which led from the 
public highway to the great white Colonial farm house 
that stood against a hillock covered with oaks and 
elms. This lane was crossed by Mill Creek, now full 
to the brim with raging mountain water which 
splashed spitefully at the foot-log. A musk-rat, driven 
from his home by the rising water, was swimming for 
the nearest foothold. As the man approached the 
momently threatened log, the little beast, fearful of a 
yet greater calamity at human hands, abandoned itself 
to the stream to be carried to a place of safety; but 
the man paid no more attention to the predicament 
of this fellow creature, than to the perils of the foot- 
log. Reaching at last the freshly white-washed gate, 
Mr. Collingsworth paused for a moment, strove to 
clean his muddy pumps against the stile, seemed to 
make an effort to look more cheerful than he felt, and 
then walked up the avenue of dripping silver maples 
to the long veranda where, wrapped in the comforting 
folds of a Paisly shawl, his wife, grown anxious at his 
delay in the rain, awaited him. 

“Why, my dear, you will take your death of cold! 


134 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Why didn’t you carry an umbrella? And, mercy me, 
if you didn’t wear a silk hat! Come right in to the 
fire. I had one built thinking you might be wet,”— 
greeted Mrs. Collingsworth, as her husband mounted 
the steps. 

“No, there is no letter from him,” said Mr. Collings¬ 
worth, ignoring his wife’s solicitude, and holding out 
a handful of letters as though they were so much waste 
paper, “and that gossiping old scoundrel, Tatum, tried 
to find out why I’m so anxious about the mail, and 
why I’d quit sending one of the niggers to the postbox.” 

“I reckon the boy is too proud to write home until 
he has found something to do,” sighed Mrs. Collings¬ 
worth. “At any rate it is a comfort to have heard 
something, even if it was a single postcard. And we 
know that he intends completing his course at college.” 

“Ah, yes, but where, and how?” questioned her 
husband. “What reputable college will accept him 
after he has been disgracefully expelled? And what 
does he know about work? He’s never done a stroke 
of work in his life. It’s all very well to say on paper 
that you’re going to work your way through college, 
but finding the work and the school is another matter, 
ma’am—a horse of another color. If Jeffrey had showed 
the proper spirit in this affair, I would have arranged 
to get him in at Charlottesville on condition; but he 
has taken everything in his own hands, and I can’t do 
anything. I am utterly helpless,” he finished miserably. 

“I do think that Doctor Daniels acted rather hastily 
with the boy, turning him out that way,” ventured his 
wife, who was slow to criticize those in authority. 

“Yes, and that after all I have done for Wythe in 
the past, and my father before me,” added Mr. Col¬ 
lingsworth, snapping his fingers,—“and Daniels was a 
classmate of mine, and wouldn’t have been president 
of Wythe if I hadn’t helped him. But I suppose it is 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


135 


foolish to expect any gratitude in this world. And now 
he writes to me that he is ‘sorry’. Confound his sor¬ 
row !” 

“Don’t say that, dear,” remonstrated his wife who, 
since Mr. Collingsworth’s resignation from the Old- 
bern Church, had been frequently shocked by what she 
termed “profane” outbursts from her husband. “I am 
afraid we are to blame for the way we brought the 
boy up, keeping him away from everything that boys 
usually have and do.” 

“Well, I did the best I knew how,” sighed the min¬ 
ister,—“I wanted him to be a gentleman and a scholar 
and a God-fearing man. I tried to make him read the 
best of everything, and I thought if I kept him sur¬ 
rounded with fine influences that he would never get 
away from them. Instead of that he seems to be utterly 
alienated from me—seems even to hate me,” he almost 
sobbed. “Why, even that one postcard was addressed 
to you, and didn’t even mention his father!” 

“He will understand some day,” comforted the wife. 
“I never will believe that a boy of mine is bad at 
heart, and I know that that story about his drinking 
is all wrong. If he did drink once, I’m sure it was on 
a dare, and that he will never do it again.” 

“But your brother Paige used to drink more than 
was good for him,” suggested Mr. Collingsworth, glad 
to discover something relatively less unpleasant to talk 
about. 

“Only on Christmas and the holidays,” objected his 
wife. “He drank like a gentleman, and never did any¬ 
thing out of the way when he was under the influence 
of liquor.” 

“And then,” continued Mr. Collingsworth, as if dis¬ 
covering a secret of importance for the first time, and 
one that bore upon his son’s misfortune,—“your 
grandfather had a still-house in his back yard, one 


136 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


that survives as a wash house to this day, if I re¬ 
member correctly.” 

“Yes, but it was not illicit,” countered his wife 
somewhat sharply, remembering that her husband’s 
maternal grandfather had lived in the mountains. 

“Hum,” commented the minister, turning away from 
the fire, “I guess you’re right. I’d better go upstairs 
and change these things of mine at once.” 

Scenes like these had been enacted for many days 
in the home on Mill Creek whither Mr. Collingsworth 
had moved a few days after Jeffrey’s expulsion from 
college. So many questions were asked at Oldbern, 
and so broken was the minister over the disgrace of 
his son, that it was intolerable to remain. He had 
centered his hopes on this only child of his, and, now 
that they were destroyed, he wished to withdraw him¬ 
self, and not see the faces of fathers whose sons bid 
fair to! accomplish somewhat to their liking, nor be 
in Oldbern on the day when they should return from 
the various colleges to which they had been sent. On 
the plea of ill health, he had resigned, and had returned 
to the home where his father and his father’s father 
had first seen the light of day. He felt that, once hid 
away from curious eyes, he could approach the prob¬ 
lem that confronted him—the reclaiming of his son— 
more naturally. He would not need to put on the 
mask of stoic hardness and indifference which he had 
affected in the village. For Mr. Collingsworth was 
not a hard man. He was a man enamoured with the 
idea to seem hard, and to walk as though unaffected 
by the accidents of a vulgar world. In the fastnesses 
of the forest he chose to weep, and in fields remote 
from men he could accuse himself. 

His wife was made of other stuff, and the removal 
from the congenial influences of the parish where, to 
a few of her friends, she could open her heart, made 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


137 


of her trial a thing trebly hard to be borne. She had, on 
receiving the news of her son’s downfall, dispatched 
forthwith a hundred dollars which she had secretly 
put by; but as Jeffrey had left no forwarding address, 
the letter had been returned along with a note from 
Dad Markham saying that Jeffrey had gone to Ripple 
Ford, spent one night there, and had departed, the 
next morning, for Bristol, without leaving any word 
of his destination. Markham had, on receiving her 
letter, made investigations on the campus and had, 
later, walked to Ripple Ford to gather this informa¬ 
tion. Mrs. Collingsworth’s reply from Wythe College 
was even more unsatisfactory than this in that no one 
of the faculty had made the least effort to discover the 
whereabouts of their former student. ‘‘They regretted,” 
etc.,—that was all. The one man of the faculty who 
had reason to know, chose, out of policy’s sake, to 
keep silent. Then came a postal card from Big Stone 
Gap with the word that Jeffrey was on his way 
“North” where he would work his way through 
school; he was leaving that night and would give an 
address when he had one; his mother was not to 
worry! 

“North” to the mother meant a place far beyond the 
sweet influences of friendship, and away from the 
hearthstones of hospitality. Her son had taken upon 
him an exile in a land of shrewd bargains and cold 
shoulders. At Oldbern some of the parishioners had 
comforted her by relating stories of friendly north¬ 
erners who had been kind to Mrs. So and So; but in 
the country house her tears fell daily as she whis¬ 
pered her grief to the knitting needles, or told the 
cause of her woe to the hall clock. Once she stole 
away through the grove back of the house and up to 
the hill-top wdiere there were a few graves holding the 
ashes of some of the earlier Collingsworths who had 


138 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


not been removed to the church yard. In her sorrow 
she almost reckoned her son among' the dead. Some¬ 
times, in a more hopeful mood, she would go up to the 
high-boy in her bed room, and there, from the top 
drawer, would take out a picture of Jeffrey, taken be¬ 
fore his hair had been cut short, and would go through 
one of their petting dialogues:— 

“Mammy’s baby?” 

“Yes, but not baby’s mammy, though?” 

“Yes, it is.” 

Once Rhoda, standing in the hall outside of the 
door, overheard her mistress going through this affec¬ 
tionate nonsense, and reported the incident to the 
kitchen: 

“Ah do believe Miss Collingswuff is jes a goin’ out’n 
huh haid ovah that chile; yes sah, she’s jes goin’ plum 
crazy.” 


XIX 


( 1 ) 

AT about four o’clock in the morning of the thirty- 
first of May, a very soiled and travel-worn 
young man walked up a deserted street in the 
town of Argyle. In his right hand he carried a small 
bundle. He stopped for a moment at a corner and 
looked inquiringly now this way, and now that; then, 
shaking his head, proceded on up the street in which 
he had been walking since he had left the yards of the 
Burlington railroad. Two blocks farther along, his in¬ 
spection resulted in something more satisfactory. In 
the middle of the block at his left was a lighted sign 
board! “Working Man’s Hotel,” it read. 

“Good enough for my purpose as well as my pocket 
book,” he muttered to himself. 

The night bell was answered at last by a blear-eyed 
old man who, between yawns, managed to answer the 
inquiries of his prospective guest. 

“Room with,—ho-hum—bath? Yes, if you have a 
dollar. Pay in advance.” 

The money was produced and through its magic the 
host became a little more amiable. “No, we don’t do 
any cleaning and pressing, but ho-ho-hum, I can have 
them sent across the street after seven o’clock. It will 
probably cost you two dollars to have them cleaned. 
Just leave them hanging on the door knob outside. 
Got the money about you?” 

Jeffrey showed the man a five dollar bill. 

“Aw right, when do you want to get up?” 

“Ten o’clock.” 


140 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Ho-hum, right up this way.” 

There is an astonishing psychological difference be¬ 
tween the shaved and the unshaved. Jeffrey had never 
been aware of it before, but now, after a bath, shine, 
shave, hair cut; with clothes pressed and the rents 
therein repaired, the world seemed altogether a better 
place and he a better citizen. He had three dollars left, 
for which he gave thanks for the guidance of his one¬ 
time fellow traveler, and to the economies he had 
practised in getting himself rehabilitated. It was late 
in the afternoon before he set out across town for the 
college. 

Argyle was a queer place to one who had been ac¬ 
customed to the rambling string-towns of the South,— 
towns whose houses were dotted about in a hit or miss 
fashion. It was laid out like a checker board, save for 
the very center where there was a primly square park, 
containing a band stand, a few benches, some trees, 
and a W. C. T. U. drinking fountain; the whole being 
enclosed by an iron hitching fence. This square park 
cut Main Street into North Main and South Main, and 
the streets parallel to this interrupted thoroughfare 
were indicated by numerals, while the bisecting streets 
were known by the letters of the alphabet. It was a 
very simple but singularly unimaginative arrangement, 
Jeffrey thought, but he was amazed to note how clean 
everything seemed to be; no trash was visible, no dis¬ 
agreeable smells greeted one’s nostrils, and everywhere 
were the signs of a moderate prosperity. 

The college was housed in a group of nondescript 
brick buildings set back in an attractively wooded, but 
highly compressed campus. There were lacking the 
spaciousness, the repose and the unity that made 
Wythe, architecturally, a place of beautiful memories. 
Wythe made one feel like lounging about in a com- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


141 


fortable chair and reading out of an old book with 
blind tooled covers, while an obsequious darky set 
mint juleps on the table by one’s side. Argyle seemed 
to be the embodiment of science, business, efficiency, 
sobriety, and success. Beauty was not there to distract 
one’s attention from the task of acquiring culture, and 
the feet of the young men and women as they moved 
swiftly from one building to another, beat staccato on 
the hard pavements. And Jeffrey thanked God that 
he had reached a land of liberty! 

Commencement was drawing near, and the presi¬ 
dent was busy, so Jeffrey was forced to wait in the 
library for a short half hour which he spent in looking 
at the books. Yes, there were Spencer and Mill and 
Darwin; and here were Lester Ward’s books on soci¬ 
ology, Frazer’s Golden Bough and Bernard Shaw’s 
plays. McKaig had told him of Shaw. President God¬ 
dard, he thought, was sure to be a Freethinker, and 
was probably a socialist. What a heaven this was go¬ 
ing to be! . . . He could talk without being thought 
an eccentric fool, and think what he pleased without 
being insulted and cast out. 

The door opened and the president entered, bearing 
in his hand Jeffrey’s card. There were no formalities. 
At Wythe one entered the office of the president to 
find that gentleman standing, very erect, by his chair, 
where he remained until one was fairly inside the 
room; then, in grave silence, one was profoundly 
bowed and gestured into a chair, after which ceremony 
one was bid to speak. Doctor Goddard addressed him 
as though he had seen him the day before. 

“Well, Collingsworth,” he began, holding out his 
hand, “you came sooner than we were led to expect by 
Dr. Fitzpatrick’s letter. Sorry to have kept you wait¬ 
ing, but awffully busy. You must have had more money 
than Fitzpatrick thought?” 


142 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Jeffrey explained the manner of his coming. 

“Very good,” commented Doctor Goddard, “and 
now that you’re here, money is the first problem. 
What are you willing to do?” 

“Anything, sir.” 

“Would you carry papers?” 

“What kind of papers?” Jeffrey asked in bewilder¬ 
ment. 

“Newspapers, newspapers, of course.” 

Jeffrey flushed. This was indeed getting far down 
in the scale of things. A Collingsworth becoming a 
newsboy! Still, he supposed such things were respect¬ 
able up here, so he feebly nodded assent. 

“I think,” continued the president, “that the men 
here get seven or eight dollars a week on a paper route, 
and if you are willing to do some service as watchman 
in one of the dormitories, you can have a room there 
this summer for nothing. The paper route will mean 
work from either four to six in the morning, or from 
three to six in the evening, depending on the paper 
that employs you. You may be able to get both a 
morning and an evening route. That will leave the 
rest of the day free, and, if you care to, I believe that 
Dr. Rice of the English department could use you 
around his garden. That would give you your meals 
and leave you, no doubt, some margin of leisure for 
study. Of course I assume that you are willing to 
enter this kind of an arrangement from the fact that 
you have taken the trouble to come up here.” 

These plans were rather overwhelming, coming thus 
from a man he had met only five minutes ago, but 
Jeffrey felt the great load of uncertainty which he had 
borne since his dismissal from the South, suddenly 
lifted from him, and in his anxiety to please this new 
friend, he would, if possible, have undertaken a hun¬ 
dred additional tasks. He liked the tall, gaunt, white- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


143 


haired embodiment of efficiency, and felt at ease as to 
the future. The great fear of “up north” was dispelled 
by this man whose business-like air was relieved by 
an apologetic and almost childlike smile. 

“If you will excuse me, Mr. Collingsworth, I am 
going to turn you over to Mr. Maxwell who will show 
you about and get you in touch with some of the men 
who have been working their way,” the president fin¬ 
ished. “And you can come to my table at the commons 
tonight for dinner. We will have more time then to 
get acquainted.” He turned again to his office with— 
“You just make yourself at home here until Maxwell 
comes.” 

Maxwell came presently, and proved to be an ex¬ 
cellent guide as well as an authority on the problem 
of making one’s way. One of the Seniors was giving 
up a paper route at the end of the week and he was 
glad to introduce Jeffrey to the local circulation man¬ 
ager of the Gazette as a good person to take his place. 
Until school was out, Jeffrey could share his room; 
and then, to settle the problem of his board, Dr. R:’ce 
was willing to have him go to work for him the follow¬ 
ing day. He could trim the shrubbery in his garden. 

It seemed like magic. In the South these arrange¬ 
ments would have to be talked over for many days, 
and, while the people there would have smiled more, 
have seemed more cordial, and would have almost in¬ 
evitably invited one,—in Jeffrey’s straits—to “come 
and stay awhile,” the actual business of putting him 
in a position of independence would have been gra¬ 
ciously but painfully deliberate. Jeffrey was conscious, 
however, of a lack of warmth in the tone of these 
people, and he wondered whether their brusqueness 
had a source deeper than the mere accident of a harsh 
accent. Of one thing he was assured,—the people were 
just as kind as the ones he had left behind him, and he 


144 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


was, at the moment, inclined to believe that they were 
much more just. 

At sunset Maxwell took him to the top of the em¬ 
battled tower on South Hall to get a view of the town. 
From this elevation, the moderate height of four 
stories, one could see it all,—a compact huddle of well 
nigh uniform buildings, on streets as alike as peas in 
a pod. Beyond, on every side, lay the flat prairie which 
came up precisely to the carefully set rows of cottages, 
and stopped without the usual suburban hesitation. 
Nothing about the town bore the splashed-out look of 
the curious little villages of the South and East. One 
could see and comprehend everything at a glance. It 
was a plaster cast set in the center of a billiard table. 
Even the rows of trees on the plains beyond—trees 
that had been set out for wind breaks—had grown up, 
just so, and come to a stop, o’he tree not daring to 
excel another. The churches of the town had no 
spires. It was a perfect picture of democracy; the 
triumph of equality, sanitation, and soap. 

At first Collingsworth seemed a bit odd to the peo¬ 
ple of Argyle; not because he was heterodox, for most 
of the students there had embraced at least one of the 
heresies which had made him so conspicuous in his 
own land; but because of his habit of speech, his pro¬ 
nunciation, and his colorful violence. These were 
milder folk, and not accustomed to the vituperative 
outbursts of the Southerner. But gradually he came 
to assimilate himself to the psychology of the plains. 
Years before he had begun the task of imitating the 
northern speech, but now that he heard it all about 
him he soon managed to change “doe” into door, and 
“moe” into more, and to leave off saying “sir,” and 
“madam.” When some one called attention to any 
phrase not characteristic of the country, he dropped 


. CABLES OF COBWEB 


145 


it at once. He was resolved to become a thorough¬ 
going Yankee. 

In a few days he was initiated into the business of 
a paper carrier on one of the residential routes. One 
got up at three o’clock in the morning and walked 
about half a mile to the office of the Gazette, in the 
rear of which one descended into the basement press¬ 
room, and took the papers as they came, warm and 
damp, from the great folding machine. A man was 
there who verified the count and saw that no newsboy 
carried too many; or handed out slips bearing the 
name of a new subscriber. Each newsboy then went 
apart with his papers, folded them once more, placed 
them in a canvas sack, and set forth upon his habitual 
journey. There were short cuts to learn, some back 
yards that could be traversed, and some that were 
guarded by a watchful terrier. And when these things 
were once mastered, the task became automatic—a 
roll and a cast, and lo! the intelligent citizen had at 
his door the cultural medium through which he might 
know the dangers or the felicities of his republic, and 
become wise. 

Carrying papers is an excellent introduction to busi¬ 
ness life. One gets to know people at their worst:— 
in the before-breakfast mood of irritability, or, if one 
carries an evening paper (as Jeffrey came to do a few 
days later), in the world-weary, dog-tired mood of 
discontent. An old woman will get up early for the 
purpose of scolding her carrier because he left her 
paper where it would be sprinkled by the gardener, or 
to ask if he will bring the paper to the door instead of 
flinging it from the sidewalk. And on the evening 
when the boy tries to collect the weekly sum of ten 
cents, the man of the house will come forth, collarless 
and irascible, to ask if the carrier means to try to col¬ 
lect money from him twice in the same week. Excel- 


146 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


lent discipline in democracy it was for the grandson 
of Major Crockett Collingsworth, when that young 
gentleman would be coming down the street, bearing 
a sack of papers and meditating upon the sensuous 
fancies of Lucretius, to be abused by the keeper of a 
livery stable for the loss of a single issue. Before the 
year was gone he made some slight modifications in 
his theory of equality. 

It was a new world for Jeffrey and it put into him a 
new attitude towards life. Because there was little 
time for study, he used all of it; and by the opening of 
school in the following autumn he was ready to pass 
the examinations necessary to enter the Senior class 
without condition; and as the year went on he saw, 
with some satisfaction, that his class standing was far 
above what it had been in any previous year of college 
life, and that, too, despite the fact that he was carrying 
more than the required number of hours. He could 
not resist the new liberty he enjoyed, under a more 
generous elective system, for entering upon courses of 
study that promisd fascinating fields of research. He 
turned to psychology with the formerly forbidden 
William James for a text; comparative religion, which 
required the reading of the Golden Bough, and of For- 
long’s Rivers of Life; an ethics course with Wester- 
marck’s Origins for parallel reading; and a year’s 
course in sociological theories in which he had often 
to refer to the books of Kropotkin and Morgan. His 
report card was so unusually good, for him, that he 
could not resist sending it to his mother—for the pur¬ 
pose of confounding his father. 

( 2 ) 

Within a month after his arrival at Argyle, Jeffrey 
had met a member of the Socialist Local, Frederick 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


147 


Olson, one of the type-setters employed at the Gazette 
office, and had received from him an invitation to at¬ 
tend one of their bi-monthly meetings and to join the 
party. The Local met in a diminutive and somewhat 
shabby hall over a peculiarly pungent bake shop, and 
after his first experience therein, Jeffrey was never 
able to think of socialism without somehow associat¬ 
ing it with cinnamon rolls. Illogically enough he was 
surprised, and somehow disappointed at this first meet¬ 
ing with the Socialists. They met on the first and 
third Sundays of each month, and with an instinctive, 
or perhaps, just an inherited respect for the day, Jeff¬ 
rey had selected, from his lately recovered wardrobe, 
a suit of black which seemed appropriate to the oc¬ 
casion. He imagined that there would be a large gath¬ 
ering, an interesting lecture, some music, and, finally, 
some sort of a social gathering where enthusiastic 
disciples would discuss and strive to simplify the brain¬ 
splitting theories of their great master. His heart sank 
a little when he found that the address given him by 
Olson led him to a bakery which he had passed on the 
day of his arrival in the town, and he climbed the 
stairs with some misgivings. Five old men, two of 
them coatless, sat about a table in a corner of the 
room, listening to Olson, who stood before them, 
reading something from the Appeal. Jeffrey hesitated 
at the door until the reader, sensing a newcomer, 
turned about. 

“Ah, it is our new Comrade, Collingsworth/’ ex¬ 
claimed Olson. “Welcome! This is Comrade Lanker- 
stein; and Comrade Muller; and Comrade Steiner; 
Comrade Smith; and Comrade Levinsky,” he said, in¬ 
troducing them in turn. Jeffrey noted that they all, 
including Comrade Smith, spoke with an accent. 

“We are late gathering,” exclaimed Olson. “We 
always must wait for Comrade Bergman, and Comrade 


148 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Thomas. We must have a korum and a secretary, eh?” 
He laughed loudly at this remark of his, and Jeffrey, 
seeing that all the comrades joined in this mirth, smiled 
feebly. 

The room was unfurnished save for twenty or thirty 
cane chairs and a small veneered oaken table. On the 
wall hung a lithograph of a rosy-cheeked Karl Marx, 
whose little jet black eyes peered out over a Niagara 
of white whiskers. On the table were some red-cov¬ 
ered pamphlets and a bundle of the Appeal. 

After a time came the two comrades concerning 
whose lateness Olson had seemed to derive so much 
amusement; and presently the meeting was called to 
order. The minutes of the previous meeting at which, 
it seemed, nothing had been done, were read and ap¬ 
proved ; a long and poorly typewritten communication 
from the National Headquarters, was slowly spelled 
out and, after interminable discussion, voted upon; 
and then followed the reading of letter after letter 
from struggling Socialist papers begging for funds. 
These last were sadly laid upon the table. Towards 
the end of the meeting, Jeffrey was asked if he would 
join the party. 

The utter dullness of the affair, the lingering over 
stupid details, and the almost religious insistence upon 
form had bored him. These old men sat around like 
deacons at a prayer meeting, and the smell of roasting 
peanuts that came in from the street outside to mingle 
with that of cinnamon rolls, was most offensive. His 
prejudices were aroused, and he almost wished that 
he were out of it. But it wouldn’t do. He must think 
of the Cause, of the principle. Marx and Engels were 
sound, and their gospel must be proclaimed in spite 
of the stupidity of such performances by their follow¬ 
ers. He remembered his embarrassment at meeting 
these homely persons when he had entered the room. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


149 


He had shivered when they called him “Comrade”; 
he thought that “Mr.” was somehow good enough for 
any occasion. He wondered, with some self-distrust, 
whether he were not a snob. If so, he was a scoundrel 
and a traitor. He resolved to prove himself and to 
enter into the movement with all his zeal. 

“Yes, Comrade Secretary,” he responded, “I am 
very anxious to join the party if you will have me. I 
have been a Socialist at heart for three years, but this 
is the first opportunity I have been afforded for join¬ 
ing the party. I thank you.” 

And when, a half an hour later, he went forth with 
Olson and Thomas, he wore, in the lapel of his black 
coat, a new and shining Socialist button, and in his 
pocket he carried, besides a number of pamphlets, a 
significant red card. Thomas had invited these two 
comrades to take dinner with him at his restaurant, 
“The Eat Shop,” a few blocks away and just on the 
edge of the factory district. He conducted, besides the 
restaurant, and under the same roof, a garment-press¬ 
ing establishment, known as “The Pantatorium,” back 
of which, screened off by a disreputable curtain, was 
his printing shop, advertised on the sign board with¬ 
out as “The Star Press.” A large-boned, square-faced 
woman, whom Thomas introduced as his wife, was 
waiting on customers as the trio entered the room. 

“Well, socialism don’t help me to keep a lunch 
counter,” was her greeting. “I suppose you want din¬ 
ner for three? Just so. You can wait on them your¬ 
self.” 

“My wife does not understand, does not sympathize; 
it is my grief,” said Thomas, shaking his head. 

He led them to a little private room in the rear, 
where they could talk together without interruption 
and without endangering the trade. 

“It is very hard for a married man to be a Socialist, 


150 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


if he has a living to make/’ Thomas explained after he 
had brought a well-filled tray from the kitchen. “My 
wife is afraid we will lose money. The revolution will 
have to be won by single men. Women spoil the spirit 
•of the strike, they have not the courage to make sacri¬ 
fice and they cannot understand that it is as much, or 
more, for them than for their husbands.” 

“All that will be changed when the bread-and-butter 
problem is settled,” said Comrade Olson, struggling 
with a huge mouthful of bologna,—“economic deter¬ 
minism, economic determinism, everywhere explains 
bad theories, false religions, false doctrines in the 
schools; the people are afraid they will lose their 
bread and butter, so they lie to please their masters, 
and they lie so long and so loud that they come to 
think they tell the truth, and then will fight and die 
for it. If socialism was fashionable, and brought trade, 
your wife would be a better socialist than you are, 
comrade, for she would be a good materialist.” , 

“Ah, but Comrade Olson,” cried Thomas. “You lay 
too much stress on the material side, we must change 
that, but we must reach the brain first. People must 
be taught to think. We must not make the mistake of 
depending too much,” he went on, turning to Jeffrey,— 
“on the economic evolution. The proletariat must be 
educated so it is superior to the capitalist thinker; 
then when the system breaks we can take charge. 
And, then, when we talk all the time about materialist 
this and materialist that, the people say we think of 
nothing but the stomach. Bah!” 

“Coming back to marriage,” said Jeffrey, whose 
heart still ached from his experience at Ripple Ford, 
“do you not feel that when women are in a position of 
economic freedom, they will be led to drop marriage 
as an outgrown garment? And don’t you think that 
will be the only solution of such problems as Mr.— 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


151 


er—I mean Comrade Thomas has been confronted 
with? Where people are independent of each other 
financially they will not have to be dependent men¬ 
tally.” 

“If you mean that the marriage rite will be out¬ 
grown, and that the economic basis will give inde¬ 
pendence to each by giving employment to all, you’re 
right, but if you mean that marriage will ever be out¬ 
grown, you’re not sound, Comrade,—” replied Olson. 
“And free love is not a doctrine we want talked by 
our comrades. It turns people away from us. Let us 
help the workers triumph, and help them to think; 
and then when the day comes the majority can settle 
the less important matters.” 

“See here,” countered Jeffrey, “I am new to the 
movement, and I want to know just where I stand. 
Now you, Mr.—ah—Comrade Olson want to keep 
the idea of freedom in marriage entirely out of the 
movement, and Comrade Thomas wants us to be quiet 
about materialism; and yet the Socialist literature I 
have read speaks of both of these things quite freely 
and openly. Am I to drop both or neither?” 

Then the argument began in earnest, with Thomas 
and Olson gesticulating wildly, and both talking at 
once. Marxian terms were flung about the little room 
as though they were pots and pans, and in their ex¬ 
citement each accused the other of being muddle- 
headed and a hindrance to the movement. Jeffrey was 
inclined to agree with both on these points, but con¬ 
cerning the question he had raised, he was destined 
to receive no light. The men became incoherent, and 
had arrived at the point where arguments usually end, 
when the door was opened by a tall, emaciated old 
gentleman whose face was hidden by side whiskers 
and steel spectacles. 

“Pardon my intrusion,” he began. “But I was hav- 


152 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


ing a bite to eat here in the restaurant, when I heard 
the sound of voices. Your wife. Comrade Thomas, 
told me that you and your friends were having a bit 
of an argument, so I presumed to enter.” 

“Come right in, Comrade Doctor Gibbings,” shouted 
Thomas in some relief. “I am glad you came, for 
you’re just the man we need. Meet our new comrade 
from Virginia, Comrade Collingswurt. This good 
man,” he continued, addressing himself to Jeffrey, 
“was a professor in the colleges, and is one of the 
martyrs of the cause. You are a young college man 
and will appreciate him.” 

“What college are you from?” questioned Comrade 
Gibbings. 

“I came from Wythe just a few weeks ago and in¬ 
tend to take my Senior year in Argyle.” 

“Ah! Wythe is a good old Presbyterian school. I 
used to hear of it in other days. I was once a Presby¬ 
terian minister, and am a Princeton man. Glad to see 
college men coming into the movement. But what was 
the argument about?” 

“I seemed to cause no end of trouble,” laughed Jeff¬ 
rey, “by a question of tactics. Comrade Olson says we 
must keep quiet about one thing—free marriage; and 
Comrade Thomas says we should be quiet concerning 
the materialistic argument. We don’t seem to get any¬ 
where.” 

“As for me,” began the old man, taking a handful of 
raisins out of his pocket and seating himself on the 
edge of the table, “I am inclined to think that we waste 
our propaganda on stony ground. We must meet peo¬ 
ple where we find them. The majority of the typical 
American people are in the Protestant churches, and 
there is enough socialism in the Bible to give them a 
start. Christ was the first socialist. I made the great 
mistake of going too far with liberal theology and 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


153 


had to give up my pulpit. I should have gone more 
slowly and led my congregation with me. It is through 
the churches that we must work. They must be 
brought back to Christ, and away from Mammon.” 

“Oh, Hell 1” exclaimed Comrade Olson. “Christ 
never did live. He is a myth to fool honest working 
men and to keep them contented—‘servants obey your 
masters’—bunk! I got no more time to waste. I must 
get home and get some rest. Christ is all bunk, Com¬ 
rade Gibbings,—and you, too, Comrade Olson,—you 
ought to know better. Bunk!” and with no other fare¬ 
well than this expletive, he strode rapidly out of the 
room. 

“I’m very sorry to break up your party,” said Com¬ 
rade Gibbings apologetically. “I am sure I had no 
intention of being rude.” 

“Ah that is nothing, Comrade,” replied Thomas. 
“Olson always acts that way in an argument. He can’t 
help it. Look at that head of his,—too much combat¬ 
iveness, too little judgment. It takes phrenology to 
understand human nature.” 

“Yes, yes, certainly. I must be going,” interrupted 
Gibbings, suddenly jerking out his watch and getting 
to his feet. “I was about to forget that I am due at 
the Baptist Church this evening. I promised one of 
my friends to bring over some copies of the Christian 
Socialist for distribution at the evening service. I hope 
to see you again, Comrade Collingsworth. I don’t 
always stay away from the meetings of the Local. 

Jeffrey was ready to return to his room at the dor¬ 
mitory, but as old Gibbings was leaving, Comrade 
Thomas signaled for him to remain for a moment. 

“I want to show you my books,” he explained, as he 
drew back a dingy curtain which had concealed a row 
of well-worn books and pamphlets. “And then I 
wanted to say that you must not pay much attention 


154 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


to either of these comrades; one is an atheist and the 
other is an ex-preacher—both unsound. You are very 
young and must discover the truth. You must read 
good literature. Now here’s a book to tie to —The 
Philosophy of Genetics y—explaining the universe, past, 
present, and to come, in symbols and in numbers. It 
includes Karl Marx and goes beyond him. From this 
book you will be able to foretell all the coming events 
of history. Then you will need to be able to read 
human nature if you are to go far in the movement, 
and,”—growing very confidential,—“I see that great 
things are ahead of you. You must study phrenology. 
I have here the complete course of the Continental 
Institute of Phrenology and Allied Sciences,” here 
drawing forth a bundle of typewritten pamphlets 
bound together with ribbons. “And here again, is my 
course in Personal Magnetism—fourteen lessons,” he 
added with emphasis, as though there was some spe¬ 
cial significance in the number. “Then here is Doctor 
Astral’s great course in Scientific Astrology. I Have 
diplomas in all these things. If they are used right 
you can become a great power. All these philosophies 
will help in the establishment of the Co-operative 
Commonwealth, if they are put into the hands of peo¬ 
ple who love their fellow men, instead of into the 
possession of exploiters. Won’t you take these home 
with you and read them,” he implored. “I want you 
to start right. With the power you can derive from 
these lessons you can be a great man.” 

Jeffrey was embarrassed both by this exaggerated 
praise, and the excessive size of the library he was 
supposed to borrow, but the man looked so utterly 
sincere and so pathetically eager, that he accepted the 
books with a show of enthusiasm. Thomas, delighted 
by the notion that his library was going out to the 
shades of the academy to accomplish a worthy mis- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


155 


sionary function, proceeded to make a huge, unwieldy 
bundle, wrapped in the colored supplements of news¬ 
papers which bore evident signs of kitchen and mar¬ 
ket usage. 

“I’m glad to find a young man of so much promise 
coming to our cause,” he said, as he finished tying up 
the parcel with red cords. “My books are to be used 
by those who are able to see the truth, and turn it into 
power for good-” 

“Joe Thomas!”-interrupted his wife, bursting at 

this moment into the room,-“I want to know if I 

am going to run this shop all by myself, while you gas 
around and waste your time over the ‘cause’.” This 
last word she spat out with vast contempt. “If it 
wasn’t for me, we’d be in the poor house; and you all 
the time talkin’ about ‘power’. My patience is just 
wore out.” 

Jeffrey felt that this was an excellent opportunity 
to break away, and he lost no time making apologies 
and taking his departure. 

It was growing late, the streets were quiet, and he 
hoped that he would not be observed carrying such a 
monstrous and spectacular bundle. The pockets of 
his once well-pressed suit were bulging out with 
pamphlets and periodicals that had been thrust upon 
him at the meeting; and now this enormous library of 
nonsense! He remembered that not more than two 
years had passed since he would have been eager to 
have dipped into any curious book that promised to 
offer a singular point of outlook. He had, indeed, read 
Swedenborg, and something by Cornelius Agrippa; 
but phrenology! personal magnetism! Good Lord, 
did people have to feed on superstition in order to 
live? If a man gave up Christianity on scientific or 
philosophic grounds he surely would not turn to as¬ 
trology for a substitute. Gibbings had evidently left 





156 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


in haste at the very mention of phrenology. He had 
seemed to be a gentleman; perhaps the only gentleman 
he had met among the comrades. He had spoken 
clearly and without either the jargon of the movement 
or a foreign accent; and yet, even he had been on his 
way to a Baptist Church! And, Jeffrey went on to 
reflect, what a come-down the meeting of the Local 
had been?—a mere handful of men going through a 
spiritless formula. True, they had explained that all 
the comrades did not attend regularly, and that, when 
there was a speaker, they sometimes had a packed 
hall. But why should people attend such a dull affair? 
No wonder they did not come. The men had seemed 
religiously sincere,—their socialism was a religion to 
them,—and they spent all their earnings for pamphlets 
which they distributed with the zeal of a missionary. 
But why did they hold such yawning meetings? A 
Christian Endeavor Society was more enlightening. 
This last thought brought him up with a jerk. Was 
it true? If so, he finally decided, it was because the 
folk at the Endeavor meetings were young, and be¬ 
cause their underlying motive in coming together was 
social; perhaps an unconscious sex interest was the 
motive, and they were vivacious from the mere joy of 
togetherness. He was cast down. All that had been 
connected with this first meeting with the Socialists 
had been ugly except the evident fact of their sincerity. 
And it did not comfort him to think, in this connec¬ 
tion, of the beginnings of Christianity. That was, in 
its origin, he reflected, a proletarian revolt against 
respectable, dogmatic religion, and its early adherents 
were, for the most part, neither gentlemen nor ladies. 
They had been ignorant folk and had, no doubt, many 
of them, been given to palmistry and sooth-saying 
more than to good manners and the bath. Then they 
grew, in the process of time, to be respectable; but 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


157 


every new break—the origin of every dissenting move¬ 
ment—came from the lower ranks,—down and down 
to the Methodists and the Holy Rollers. Socialism 
was a new movement,—that was the trouble. 

“Damn it!” he muttered to himself, “why does every 
new movement have to be started by people who use 
tooth picks?” 


XX 


( 1 ) 

T HE trouble with Jeffrey Collingsworth was that 
he was forever anticipating some manifestation 
of Heaven upon earth, and permitting his imag¬ 
ination to color the scene around the corner in the key 
of his desires, tie was the dupe of a reality with which 
he was not yet on speaking terms. He fancied that 
life was a game of tag in which he was “It” and 
Beauty was just behind the next bush waiting to be 
caught. He expected the readers of beautiful books to 
be beautiful people; the followers of philosophers to 
be wise; and the disciples of science to be sane. To 
live, with such expectations, is to embrace madness; 
still madness is not, perhaps, the worst of mistresses 
in such a sorry world. 

Back in his room he undid his unwieldy package of 
wisdom-literature, and, removing the stained and 
crumpled papers, re-arranged the contents in a more 
compact form, and did up the whole in clean brown 
wrapping-paper. He would return the books in a fort¬ 
night, and tell poor old Thomas how much he had en¬ 
joyed them all. He wondered, with some unease, 
whether he were not doing for this almost stranger 
what he had refused to do for those at home—the ser¬ 
vice of seeming to please. It was a simple form of 
Machiavellianism, and perhaps it should be practised 
more often, he thought. Yet there was a difference. 
The people back there were satisfied with what their 
forefathers had believed and done, while this simple man 
was groping, in his untutored way, for some new solu- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


159 


tion for the wrongs of the world. Surely it was better 
to be groping and eager, even if wrong, than to be 
satisfied and to sit still. He would not permit this un¬ 
happy first experience to deter his resolution of enter¬ 
ing the Radical Movement. He felt that he might, in¬ 
deed, be of great service to the cause by bringing 
something of the logic and the science of the academy 
to its service. He would prepare some simplifications 
of Marx, Dietzgen, and Lester Ward, suitable to the 
popular mind, and endeavor to clarify the thought of 
those fumbling comrades, create a greater unity 
amongst them; and, at the same time, strive to impart 
a new enthusiasm to the Argyle Local. Undoubtedly 
there were, in many places, live centers where the 
Socialist meetings were not stupid. He would inform 
himself concerning their programs, and, then, his task 
should be to bring new life to this one, and make of it 
an influence both in the town and the college. Happy 
over this reconciliation to his new world, he betook 
himself to bed. 

( 2 ) 

The teachers at Argyle College were very human, 
very tolerant, and very democratic. At least they 
seemed so to one who had grown suspicious of the 
scholastic temper and was ready to start at the slight¬ 
est suggestion of pedagogic authority. They certainly 
made no attempt to influence the content of one's 
thought, or, if they did, it was so indirectly done as 
to create the impression of self-discovery in one's own 
mind. They were concerned, rather, with the methods 
by which one reached conclusions. Indeed they seemed 
to be collaborators rather than instructors, and, for the 
first time in his collegiate experience, Jeffrey felt at 
home. Since these men did not care two straws 
whether he believed in Jehovah or in Pan, his attitude 


160 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


of more or less belligerent watchfulness gradually wore 
away and began to be replaced by a spirit of philo¬ 
sophic calm. One was not compelled to cry aloud for 
Pan where Pan had no violent detractors. It was a 
very bad atmosphere for the nourishing of partisan¬ 
ship and the growth of hatreds. One was not com¬ 
pelled to attend chapel, therefore one did. 

The president was not always the precipitous person 
he had seemed at the first interview, and very fre¬ 
quently Jeffrey was invited, together with some other 
men of the Senior class, to take tea at his house. On 
these occasions Goddard was fond of drawing from 
them their reactions to the college life, and of getting 
some impression of their purposes for the future. 
Francis Battle, for example, was going to try a hand 
at scientific farming in Colorado. Dr. Goddard was 
greatly interested in agriculture and offered sugges¬ 
tions that revealed a knowledge both oLthe conditions 
in that state and of the sources from which one might 
draw helpful information. Samuel Harris, looking for 
all the world like a cigar salesman, aspired to the 
church, and hoped to be able to make his pulpit a 
means of spreading what he was pleased to call “The 
newer gospel of the larger life.” The president seemed 
very sympathetic, and recited the experiences of con¬ 
spicuous liberal ministers who had been successful, 
and spoke at some length of the need of a reinterpre¬ 
tation of the Gospel in the terms of modern life. Jeff¬ 
rey, in his turn, declared his intention of following in 
the footsteps of Huxley, popularizing modern science, 
and, going further than the champion of Darwinism, 
of simplifying sociology so that the people could be 
emancipated from dogma and be prepared for the 
coming of a complete democracy. It was an excellent 
idea, the president agreed, for it would help to counter¬ 
balance Harris’ preaching. So it was with them all. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


161 


Agreement, encouragement, and assistance were held 
out to very diverse and diametrically opposed indi¬ 
viduals who were bidden to go their ways, every one, 
with this man’s blessing. He confided to Jeffrey that 
he believed in God as a very real Presence, but that he 
felt it an impertinence to thrust his belief upon others 
whose experiences differed from his own. When they 
needed God they would find him, but they were prob¬ 
ably on as sure a road who fancied themselves atheists, 
as those who called aloud upon His name. He added, 
however, that he felt that the consciousness of God 
made for a sweeter and less barren life. 

It was as impossible to quarrel with such a man as 
it was not to love him; but it was hard to be a propa¬ 
gandist in such an atmosphere. There was no one to 
hit. 

If there was an exception to this comfortable tol¬ 
erance, it was in the person of Doctor Edgerton Rice. 
With the passing of autumn and the coming of the 
severe northern winter, there was no work for Jeffrey 
to do in the garden, so, that he might earn his meals, 
he was given occasional tasks in the library. There 
were examination papers to be corrected, a card-index 
system to be perfected, and catalogues to be made. 
Aware of Jeffrey’s straits, Edgerton Rice frequently 
made work for him when there was actually no need. 
In this charitable enterprise he was seconded by his 
wife, a kindly little woman who had, appended to her 
name, a Ph.D., whose belt never quite succeeded in 
uniting her brown skirt to her pink waist, and whose 
recalcitrant hairpins were invariably on the floor. Mrs. 
Rice devoted herself so constantly to the business of 
writing books on the philosophy of aesthetics that she 
had no time for attending to her personal appearance 
or to the homely tasks of domesticity. She was in her 
study, and her husband was in his. They had one 


162 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


regular servant, a cook, and had no regular hours,— 
remaining at their desks until hunger,—or, in the case 
of the husband, the class bell—drove them forth. 
Jeffrey frequently ate his meals alone. 

Thus it came about that Mrs. Rice also found occa¬ 
sion to call upon Jeffrey in her intermittent efforts to 
bring some order to a very chaotic household. The 
kitchen alone, thanks to the care of a frequently exas¬ 
perated cook, was well ordered. 

Dr. Rice was devoted to the form of literature rather 
than to its content. He loved the stately prose of the 
English Bible, the embroidered sentences of Walter 
Pater, and the music of De Quincy’s poppy-laden 
dreams. He conceived a violent fancy for Collings¬ 
worth as soon as he heard of his having chosen Sir 
Thomas Browne as the sole literary companion for 
his journey north. In his enthusiasm, he neglected to 
ask whether Collingsworth had read as well as he car¬ 
ried this beautiful book; it was enough that he had 
borne it in his hand. But he was indignant and puz¬ 
zled that the same youth should devote hours of study 
to Karl Marx and the economists;—“A waste of time 
in sheer ugliness!” he would exclaim when Jeffrey 
would refer to his reading. “There is only one socialist 
book that is fit to read—Oscar Wilde’s Soul of Man 
Under Socialism —and that is not socialistic. People 
should not be permitted to write ugly books. How 
can sociology or economics, hygiene or psychology, be 
other than ugly? Look at the words these frogs are 
obliged to use:—‘proletariat,’ ‘bourgeoise,’ ‘financier,’ 
‘brokerage,’ ‘punctiform,’ ‘subconscious,’ ‘appendage,’ 
‘bankruptcy,’—all damnably hideous, and unfit for 
good paper, and, besides, no book containing an ‘ology’ 
of any kind is decent.” 

“But we wouldn’t have any informative literature 
left if your rule obtained,” Jeffrey objected. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


163 


“Information that cannot be conveyed by beautiful 
words is worthless, and ‘information’ itself is a hateful 
word. Ecclesiastes, and Kubla Khan, The Ode on a 
Grecian Urn, or Annabel Lee convey no information, 
but they have more liberating power than all the so¬ 
ciological systems in the world. Let me give you a 
test for a book:—Open to that chapter in Ecclesiastes, 
beginning,—‘Remember now thy Creator in the days 
of thy youth,’ and read aloud eight verses; then turn 
to the thirteenth of First Corinthians, and read the 
entire chapter in the same way; after that pick up any 
book of sociology and begin to read it aloud for com¬ 
parison. If it jars upon your ear in any way, throw it 
into the fire. You may be sure that it is vulgar. Per¬ 
haps a better test for you to apply would be to read 
Pater’s Conclusion to the Renaissance, or his Dia- 
phaneite, which last, by the way, tells of the only civil 
kind of revolutionist; then after testing these beauti¬ 
ful things by your ear, open Herbert Spencer’s Data 
of Ethics and read the first paragraph, beginning, if I 
remember right,—‘The doctrine that correlatives imply 
one another--’ ” 

“Of course,” he added, “if your ear is that of a 
savage you’ll go on with Spencer to the Devil; other¬ 
wise you will gain some appreciation of letters.” 

Jeffrey secretly applied this extraordinary test, to 
some of the essays of Edgerton Rice, and was amused 
to discover that the result was quite unfavorable, and 
one that would have embarrassed the author no little. 
In the case of Marx and Ward, however, matters were 
much worse, and while he did not wholly share Rice’s 
enthusiasm for style, nor his belief in the infallibility 
of this device for the elimination of vulgarity in litera¬ 
ture, he did find himself repelled, ever so slightly at 
first, by the violent contrast between the consummate 
artist and the blunt propagandist. There was a seduc- 



164 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


tive power in Pater’s languorous sentences that drew 
him irresistibly, and he remembered how, long ago it 
now seemed, the magic of the Urn Burial had, in a 
similar fashion, held him for a time, and had made 
many a text book seem dull and profitless. Just so. 
Pater spoiled one’s joy over the lusts after “useful in¬ 
formation”; he created a mood out of which one re¬ 
turned to mere knowledge-grubbing with a sort of 
superior disdain. Jeffrey felt that Pater was a devil 
who must, however regretfully, be put behind, if he 
would go on his mission of world regeneration. 

At the noon hour, a few days later, Rice came into 
the dining room bearing in his hand an unwrapped 
magazine- 

“Here is an illustration of what I was saying the 
other day,” he began, handing the magazine to Jeffrey. 
“That thing has been coming to me regularly for the 
past year, and, after my looking through one or two 
numbers, has gone, with even greater regularity into 
the waste basket. I am giving you this number as an 
example of what becomes of a man who follows the 
sorry business of reforming the world. Its editor, 
Bertram Tucker, used to be a student here, and I once 
thought that he might get to be a writer of some dis¬ 
tinction, but he got hold of Herbert Spencer and de¬ 
cided to reform philosophy, and since then, he has em¬ 
braced all of the insane cults in the world. Mind you” 
—he added with a smile—“I have no objection to these 
things as such, but they have led to loose writing, bad 
writing, cheap writing; and now this silly magazine 
of his invites every inferior scribbler, who thinks he 
has an idea, to become a contributor. Granted that 
what they call ‘ideas’ are really ideas, they lack in¬ 
spiration and they’re not literature. No man who re¬ 
spects literature should have anything to do with 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


165 


them. Tucker is a great disappointment to me,” he 
finished. 

“But some one must take an interest in society and 
in economic laws,” Jeffrey ventured, putting the maga¬ 
zine into his pocket. 

“Let the politicians and statisticians and meretricians 
do the dirty work,” suggested Professor Rice. “You 
are cut out for better things. Stick to literature. But 
I suppose my telling you that will do no more good 
than in Tucker’s case. He was bound for destruction, 
and to destruction he has gone. Calls his magazine 
The Flaming Future, and it does flame with a ven¬ 
geance; it sets fire to all good poetry and sound prose— 
verily a future which, I trust, I shall not live to see.” 

Jeffrey was saved from replying to this last by the 
tardy appearance of Mrs. Rice who entered the room 
giving an apologetic pat to her rebellious hair. 

“I am sorry to be late,” she murmured, “but I just 
had to finish my article on Jacobean Furniture for the 
International Studio. I suppose this soup is stone cold 
by this time.” 

“Perhaps the cook will bring some more?” Jeffrey 
suggested. 

“I don’t dare ask,” Mrs. Rice hastened to say, as 
though alarmed by the very thought. “She scolds 
enough about our irregular meals as it is, and I simply 
can’t afford to have her leave.” 

“Excellent, excellent!” said her preoccupied husband 
looking into space and waving his fork.—“Style is 
everything.” 

Jeffrey wondered if these people ever thought of 
style in relation to eating, and remembered with a 
pang the hot rolls, and baked ham, and rich puddings 
of old Virginia, where the beef had been served rare, 
and where the people had lingered at the table as 
though it were an altar from which they were loath to 


166 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


leave. Their conversations had not been agreeable, 
but their manners had been exquisite. 

% 

( 3 ) 

The Flaming Future was destined to receive a much 
more favorable treatment at the hands of young Col¬ 
lingsworth than his adviser had anticipated. Indeed, 
if that gentleman could have foreseen just what part 
this lurid journal was going to play in the immediate 
future of his pupil, he would have never rescued it 
from his wastebasket. What was meant to serve as a 
bad example came actually to be embraced as an ex¬ 
cellent medium for expression. For it was a periodical 
edited by and for rebellious youth. Its bright green 
cover bore the burning emblem of iconoclasm, and be¬ 
neath this ever lighted torch were the words: “We 
burn the errors of the Past to light the way of the 
Future.” Within, after an editorial on the necessity 
for “Cosmic Thinking,” were little essays on raw food, 
on sun baths, on the evils of corsets, on co-operative 
colonies, on not wearing a hat, on why women should 
not bear the names of their husbands, on the super¬ 
stition of dress and on the menace of Christianity. 
Near the end was a page, advertising the Co-operative 
Corporation of the Flaming Futurists and inviting all 
emancipated persons to become members, or, at least, 
to contribute to the cause. Finally there was an edi¬ 
torial welcome to new writers, bidding rational think¬ 
ers to come forward with their literary wares without 
fear. 

Here, thought Jeffrey, was a magazine to which he 
might dare send an article of his own. None of the 
writers had a “style”; most of them, to say the truth, 
were unable to write an intelligible sentence; and they 
all seemed to be very young. He might easily excel 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


167 


them all. He had never been equal to offering a con¬ 
tribution to the more formidable reviews, feeling sure 
that he would be laughed at for his pains; and the few 
things he had done for The Owl had been in the way 
of English exercises, not expressive of his personality 
in any manner. Fie had, after his unfortunate first ex¬ 
perience with the Comrades, outlined an essay on “Ir¬ 
rational Rationalists,” and he set to work putting it 
into shape for publication. Since clear thinking, oddly 
enough, was the watchword of the Flaming Future, he 
felt that his article might not be rejected. As he wrote 
he became painfully conscious of the difference be¬ 
tween recognizing and achieving a distinctive style. 
One might read and appreciate Jeremy Taylor or 
Walter Pater; one might be annoyed by the conspic¬ 
uous vulgarity and structural awkwardness of the 
journalists, but to turn to and create a fine piece of 
writing w^as a very different and infinitely more diffi¬ 
cult matter. He found himself doing, again and again, 
the very things that had seemed most hateful in the 
work of men, whom, as writers, he despised. He 
wanted to write beautifully of the principles that, if 
put into practise, would make a beautiful world. He 
would have liked the praise of the radicals evoked 
from the content of his work; but he desired as much, 
perhaps, unknown to himself, more, the approval of 
its form by such men as Edgerton Rice. But beautiful 
words would not yield themselves to thoughts of class- 
struggle and poverty and pain, and the result of his 
nights of toil was a thing at once flamboyant and dull. 
He was cast down, and yet, because it was his child— 
bore the impress of his mood and expressed, more or 
less clearly, his present reaction to life—he sent it, 
religiously wrapped, to Bertram Tucker’s Flaming 
Future . 

Five days later there came a letter bearing on one 


168 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


corner of its envelope a red torch. Jeffrey hesitated a 
moment before opening it and his face burned as if in 
anticipation of an embarrassment to come. Still, the 
letter seemed too thin to be his rejected manuscript, 
so he summoned courage and broke the seal. The 
“Dear Collingsworth” opening fairly took his breath, 
and made him stand quite erect. He was recognized 
as a member of the confraternity of writers! The edi¬ 
tor had hastened to reply, he said, not only because of 
the unusual merits of the manuscript, but also on ac¬ 
count of the familiar address of the writer. He had 
known many liberal persons in the faculty at Argyle 
—lovable persons—but* they were dilettante, middle- 
class triflers with reality. The students he remem¬ 
bered as taking a weary interest, now and again, in 
socialism, Fletcherism and Free Thought, but they 
had never been serious. “It does my heart good,” ran 
the message, “to read your forthright denunciation of 
every kind of orthodoxy, and your timely warning to 
the Radical movement to keep clear of new supersti¬ 
tions. I shall give the article a prominent place in 
next month’s issue. Please send us another,—every 
month if possible.” 

“ Tf possible,’ ” Jeffrey repeated. He could write, 
though it meant the loss of sleep for a whole year if 
need be. What was the loss of sleep compared with 
fame. He rejoiced that his name would appear in print 
as a regular contributor to a Chicago periodical. He 
would send copies to some of his old friends at Wythe, 
certainly to Fitzpatrick. Then he remembered Rice; 
it wouldn’t do for Rice to see. “Thank the Lord for 
waste baskets!”—he exclaimed. 


XXI 



M RS. COLLINGSWORTH received her son’s 
first letter from Argyle with tears of joy. 
She knew there was a letter the moment she 
heard her husband’s impetuous feet bounding up the 
verandah steps. His feet had dragged of late, and 
never had he been given to such undignified haste. In 
the orchard by the lane a group of astonished darkies 
were still gazing towards the house which had just 
swallowed up the horizontally outstretched coat tails 
of their suddenly meteoric master. 

“Open it! open it!” he cried, holding out the precious 
envelope while his excited wife fumbled for her glasses. 
“I recognize Jeffrey’s writing—as abominable as ever. 
Can’t you find your spectacles? Here. Where is he?” 

“You read it, please,” said Mrs. Collingsworth, 
whose eyes were too dimmed to see. 

And so together they made it out: Their son had 
found friends; had been accepted in a respectable col¬ 
lege—a co-educational institution,—(Mr. Collings¬ 
worth was, therefore, positive that it was a poor 
school) ; he had been living in Argyle for three weeks 
and already had three positions,—was carrying two 
papers, and was working about the house and garden 
of one of his professors. (“LIow impossible!” exploded 
his father.) He had delayed writing until he should 
have something comforting to say, but now he could 
assure his mother that he would receive his degree 
just as soon as he would have at Wythe; moreover he 
liked the school much better. He missed two things. 


170 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the mountains and his walks,—the place was a sea of 
black mud as level as a floor, inspired no curiosity, 
and was cut into rectangular sections and quarter sec¬ 
tions, bounded by bristling wire fences. Would his 
mother forgive his delay and rest assured that all 
would be well? 

“But where in the world is Argyle?” questioned 
Mrs. Collingsworth when they had read the letter for 
the third time. 

“That is what I am going to find out,” replied her 
husband, rushing out of the room toward his study. 
“I will get my atlas.’k 

Never having been north of the hypothetical Mason 
and Dixon line save on the brief occasion of a visit to 
Philadelphia during the Centennial Exposition, there 
were vast regions of the country of which they were 
in total ignorance. Mr. Collingsworth had traveled 
over all of what was technically termed the South, was 
familiar with the topography of his own native state, 
and deemed any further knowledge of his country 
entirely superfluous. The very suggestion of its neces¬ 
sity he would have regarded as the height of imper¬ 
tinence. Beyond the South, so far as America was 
concerned, was a vast terra incognita—of obscene bar¬ 
barism. Outside America, he and his wife were in¬ 
terested in and had planned to visit, on some distant 
day, just two places—Geneva and Jerusalem; the 
shrines of Calvin and Christ. 

“I know of only two cities in Illinois,” said Mrs. 
Collingsworth when the map had been laid open,— 
“Springfield, which is the capital, and Chicago where 
they ship cattle.” 

“I have never sent mine there,” responded her hus¬ 
band with some disdain. “They are always sent to 
Liverpool, by way of Norfolk. But I have heard of 
two more places in Illinois,—Peoria, where the great 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


171 


distilleries are located, and Joliet, where there is a 
very terrible prison. I trust that Argyle is not near 
either of them.” 

At this juncture Rhoda, whose curiosity had been 
hardly contained since the arrival of reports regarding 
Mr. Collingsworth’s sprint down the lane from the 
post-box, and who had heard with some amazement 
the rapid fall of feet on the floor above, suddenly 
appeared in the doorway. 

“ ’Scuse me, Mis’ Lucy, but I done forgot which you 
say fo’ me have fo’ dinnah, beaten biscuits or rolls,” 
she lied, looking anxiously from one to the other, and 
wondering why in the name of common sense they 
were so perturbed over a book. 

‘‘We’ve heard from our boy at last, Rhoda,” replied 
the Mistress, knowing full well why she had appeared 
at this moment, and ignoring the obvious subterfuge. 
Rhoda never forgot. 

“Bless the Lawd! Has you now? An’ is he all 
right?” 

“He has found work in Illinois and is going to 
college up there,” explained Mrs. Collingsworth. 

“What’s dat chile goin’ to do, a workin’?”— 

“He”- 

But Mr. Collinsworth for all his absorption over the 
map, suddenly realized that some things must not be 
told. It would never do for it to get about that his 
son was a house servant, a yard man, a paper carrier. 

“Yes,” he interrupted hastily, “he is working for a 
college—school work— and is doing very well, Rhoda, 
very well. We are just locating the place on the map. 
Thank you for your interest.” 

This last was well known to be a signal for her dis¬ 
missal, but she was determined to ask one more 
question. 

“Yas, sah, you say he’s in Ill-what?” 


172 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Illinois.” 

“Is that a way up Nawth?” 

“Pretty far, I expect.” 

“Lawd, I jus’ bet he gets mo’ than tired o’ that place. 
He won’t have nothin’ fitten to eat. He won’t get no 
beaten biscuits up there!” 

“I’ve found it!” exclaimed the minister, “Here it 
is about a hundred miles south of Chicago.” 

Presently Mrs. Collinsworth descended to the kitch¬ 
en where Rhoda was now explaining the cause of all 
the exitement to the assembled servants. 

“I reckon you had Letter make a few more biscuits 
tonight, Rhoda, I think we w r ill eat with a better ap¬ 
petite,” she advised with the first real smile she had 
worn for many weeks. 

And that evening, when she was unobserved by 
her husband, she stole up to the high-boy and took 
the money out of the letter which had been returned 
from Wythe. “I think the poor boy will need it now. 
I an afraid he will work too hard,” she whispered to 
herself. 

Meantime her husband, now that his mind was more 
at ease, found additional reason for rejoicing that he 
was safe from the enquiring eyes of Oldbern. In a 
certain sense he was made proud by the pluck of his 
son in making the brave attempt to hew out his own 
destiny, but he was ashamed that he should have to 
descend to such low employment. He found some 
comfort in the reflection that his ancestors had, in the 
early days of their establishment in America, worked 
side by side with their slaves in the tilling of the new 
soil. But that had been a long time ago, and besides, 
tilling the soil was a fine thing compared to being a 
man-of-all-work. Perhaps he ought to help the boy? 
But no, if he did he would be admitting defeat, and 
going back on the word he had dispatched at the out- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


173 


set. He was now sorry that he had said “expect no 
help from me,” but, having said it, he would wait to 
see whether Jeffrey persevered to the end and got his 
degree. He wondered how his son had happened to 
find Argyle so readily, and had been accepted without 
recommendation. Surely it could not be much of a 
school,—and co-educational! Well, he would see. And 
meanwhile, there was his own attitude. It was all 
very well for him to exhibit some feeling at home and 
among the negroes, but when he went to Oldbern he 
would affect unconcern, and in reply to their inquiries, 
he would say: “Ah, yes, my son has gone North to 
take his Senior year. His trouble at Wythe was a 
slight matter, and anyway he wanted to specialize in 
science; and he has a good position. It isn’t altogether 
what I should have liked,—his going to a northern 
school,—but it is coming out very nicely, thank you.” 

And he devoutly hoped that it realy was. 

• •••••••••••« 

Suddenly Mr. Collingsworth paused in his nervous 
pacing about the room, arrested by a new and, 
apparently, very pleasing idea. It brought a glow of 
eagerness into his eyes— 

“Why not?” he questioned aloud, looking at some 
imaginary figure through the white panelled wall; 
then, with sudden resolution and a snap of his long 
fingers— 

“We’ll do that very thing.” And at the word he 
turned and ran up the winding stairway to tell his 
wife. 



XXII 


H ARD work and loss of sleep had left patent 
evidences upon Jeffrey’s face; deep lines and 
dark circles bore testimony to his toil. Work¬ 
ing from four until six in the morning; attending 
lectures for four hours during a day, part of which 
was devoted to correcting the grammatical blunders 
of freshmen, and part to some laboratory or other; 
carrying a heavy sack of papers again from four until 
six in the afternoon; studying from seven until ten; 
and then writing until midnight,—left very little time 
for rest and brought about a nervous tensity that, had 
not some relief come, would have resulted in disaster. 
During the summer, when his mid-day hours were 
unordered by the clock, he had been indifferent to the 
strain. Working was a new experience, and he 
had rather enjoyed it, so that when his mother sent 
him one hundred dollars, he had looked upon the 
money untempted. He could and would make his own 
way. Then, too, he feared that his father would know 
of the gift, and his self-respect, added to a confidence 
in his own new-found strength, made him reject the 
gift. When Christmas came his mother, who had been 
much hurt by his refusal, once more essayed to help. 
And there was sent by express, a box of rare good 
things to eat—a great roast turkey, stuffed with chest¬ 
nuts, a boiled ham, fragrant with spices, and a most 
delicious fruit cake, embedded in the top of which was 
a jewelled silver snuff box that had belonged to her 
grandfather. Jeffrey recognized this familiar house¬ 
hold treasure with a start, and was puzzled by its 
presence in such a place. By pressing a spring the 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


175 


lid was lifted and revealed the fact that the crisp bill, 
which he had before refused, had been multiplied two¬ 
fold and returned once more; this time with a note 
urging upon him that he could not well spurn his 
mother’s Christmas gift. It brought tears to his eyes. 

Thereafter he gave up carrying the morning paper— 
The Post—and was thus enabled to complete his year 
without actual hardship. He was thinner than he had 
been at Wythe, but there was about him an air of 
strength and resourcefulness that his old associates 
would have been amazed to see. Before, he had been 
equal to daring and youthful deviltries; now, he 
seemed a person capable of assuming some responsi¬ 
bility. His mornings being freer, he could give more 
time to the series he planned for the magazine. He 
had decided upon a study of comparative religion (he 
was taking lectures in the subject under Steele at the 
college), designed to show the pagan origin of Christ¬ 
ian rites and festivals, and had already sent three of 
these essays to Tucker. At the outset he was belliger¬ 
ent, and the first study, on the origin of Easter, being 
derived from his reading of the especially polemical 
works of the freethinkers, bristled with denunciation, 
and seemed to assume that Christian priests had de¬ 
liberately stolen the mystery-rites and symbols of 
Mythras and Krishna, and had appropriated them to 
their worship, very much in the spirit of cunning 
political knaves. Then, as he read more of Frazer and 
Crawley, Robertson and Wallis Budge, he began to 
see the universality of the ancient religious-drama 
and its picturesque properties,—the cross, the mitre, 
the stole and the chasuble,—and how the meaning of 
these things lay deep down in human experience of 
passion and pain. He saw the evidences of their 
growth, bit by bit, through phallic and solar and 
ancestor worships, through the worship of the gods 


176 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


of corn and wine, and then down, with all the accumu¬ 
lated accretions of the ages, to the cult of pity. And 
he came to know that religion is the effort of blunder¬ 
ing and woe-stricken man to discover some symbolic 
language for fears that can find no tongue, and for 
hopes that are unutterable. And the first great dis¬ 
cord came, he found, when some irreverent and pro¬ 
testing knave, prompted by a fatal curiosity, had 
endeavored to look behind the veil, and to substitute 
a vulgar reason for a magic and healing poesy. 

The first article, published in the March number of 
the Flaming Future, brought from radicals all over the 
land many tributes of praise. “Give it to them,” wrote 
a man from Texas, “Its just what they need.” But 
the succeeding numbers were not so successful, and by 
the first of May the spirit of calm had so settled upon 
his work, illumined as it was by a more fundamental 
knowledge of his subject, that angry protests arose. 
“You are lying down, weakening; what is the matter?” 
wrote one indignant person, “Are you afraid?” 

“H’m,” said Jeffrey to himself after reading some of 
these epistles of protest, “radical means getting at the 
root of things, and yet the more I get at the founda¬ 
tion of religious origins the less the radicals like it. 
I wonder what it is all about anyway!” 

In this perplexity he wrote to Tucker, enclosing 
some of the more condemnatory letters, and asking 
what he should do. The reply was reassuring— 

“Pay no attention to what they say. The articles 
are very good. The only trouble is that you have 
changed your point of view rather too rapidly, and are 
not just now hitting the churches as unreservedly as 
some of our subscribers wish. They have an ortho¬ 
doxy of their own, and need a little disturbance. Make 
your next installment into a summary and try your 
hand at something else,—the educational hoax. And 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


177 


now I should like to propose your coming up here and 
joining our group. I need an associate editor. If you 
are in a position to come, and would like it, let me 
know at once. There is nothing in it for you, finan¬ 
cially, but a living; educationally, it would be worth 
more than a half a dozen universities. You will be 
through there by the first of next month, so come up 
and look us over.” 

Jeffrey could hardly credit his eyes—an invitation 
to become an assistant editor! The very thing he 
needed for self-expression was at hand for the taking. 
Altogether this was a land of miracles, where things 
came at one’s bidding. He pictured the building in 
which the Flaming Future was housed; the editorial 
rooms; his own desk whereat he would, in generous 
tolerance, receive the manuscripts of a thousand eager 
world-builders. He sat down at once to write a letter 
of acceptance. 

Nevertheless he was far from content about the 
reception of his most recent articles, and he confided 
as much to Raymond Hughley, a fellow student in 
comparative religion. 

Hughley, whose neurotic eyes proclaimed him a 
zealot, was going to be a teacher, and already had 
very decided pedagogical notions. He was going to 
revolutionize the schools by the introduction of re¬ 
formed spelling, and by the abolition of the task- 
method. He approved of Jeffrey, he said, on the 
ground that he was forward-looking, and seriously 
concerned with human betterment; and he had given 
several evenings to verifying the data for the Flaming 
Future. He was amused by the violence of the criti¬ 
cisms. 

“But the fact remains,” he commented, when he 
had quoted some of the worst of the accusations, “that 


178 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the last essay is the best of the lot. It is nearer the 
truth. I wonder if they want the truth?” 

“They call themselves ‘investigators’ and ‘truth- 
seekers/ ” Jeffrey replied a trifle sadly. 

“So humanitarians call themselves lovers of man¬ 
kind, but they aren’t always. From what you have 
told me about some of your friends, I have come to 
think of an ‘investigator’ as one who carries Haeckel 
in one pocket and some miserable occult tract in the 
other. I shouldn’t be disturbed by their ravings. You 
are getting the experience in writing, which is the 
main thing for the present, while you are finding your¬ 
self. What’s this about the editorship?” 

With assumed indifference Jeffrey handed him 
Tucker’s letter. 

“Good boy!” exclaimed Hughley with enthusiasm. 
“But are you going to take it?” 

“To be sure I am.” 

Hughley gazed thoughtfully at the toe of his shoe. 
“Are you sure that it is the best thing? Is there any 
future in it?” 

“There is a dreadful lot of nonsense in the magazine 
without a doubt, if that is what you mean, but it offers 
a wider field than any that I know. The other radical 
magazines confine themselves to either anti-Christian 
or social propaganda, but this goes in for every pro¬ 
gressive movement, from spelling reform to psychol¬ 
ogy. If I am on the editorial side of the table I should 
be able to say what I want.” 

“But Tucker is not very definite about money, and 
you will have to have something to live on in Chicago.” 

“The colony supports itself,” answered Jeffrey. 

“I see,” replied the other doubtfully. Then, as 
though determined not to dampen his friend’s enthu¬ 
siasm, “Well, whatever happens, I am glad you are 
going to Chicago, for I shall be able to see you. Gregg 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


179 


wants me to come to his school next Fall. The Dicken¬ 
son School is on the South Side near Jackson Park, 
and your place must be,—” picking up the letter again, 
“somewhere near Rogers Park on the North Side; 
about fifteen miles apart; but that is nothing in 
Chicago.” 

Hughley had visited Chicago twice and was fond of 
exhibiting his familiarity with the great city. 

“It will be good to feel that I know some one in 
such a big city, but I suppose we will both be too busy 
to visit much.” 

“That’s the trouble with you, Collingsworth, you 
don’t get acquainted with enough people. The class 
hardly knows you at all, and you never say a word to 
any of the co-eds. I haven’t seen you at a dance since 
you’ve been here. If you got acquainted with more 
people of your kind, you’d get in line for something 
better than this magazine. What do you grind all the 
time for?” 

“Well, you see, my father isn’t sending me here.” 

“Yes, I know all about that. But there are several 
here doing the same thing, and they make time for 
some social life. You have Sundays.” 

“I’ve gone to several of Prexy’s teas,” Jeffrey de¬ 
fended, “and, besides I can’t dance.” 

“That’s no excuse, the girls would soon teach you.” 

“I haven’t a dress suit any more. It was one of the 
last things I gave to my old janitor at Wythe. I’d as 
soon go naked as without one.” 

“Bother a dress suit, we never use them here, this 
is a democratic school,” Hughley replied, scornful of 
Southern conventionality, “And you call yourself a 
socialist! Why you are the most conventional person 
in this school. You’ll be miserable among those radi¬ 
cals. I suppose you still find time to attend their 
meetings. Have you spoken there any more lately?” 


180 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Twice since the day you went with me; that was 
the first time, and I am going to make an open-air 
speech on the Square Commencement night.” 

“That means you won’t come to the Alumni ban¬ 
quet! You are a queer devil,” exclaimed Hughley. 

“See here,” he went on, “I’ve a suggestion to make. 
I thought of it the afternoon I heard you speak for the 
Socialists. You’re a better orator than the average, by 
a darn sight. Why don’t you sign up for Chautau- 
quas? There’s money in that, and you’d always be 
sure of having an audience. If you want to reform the 
world there is you£ chance to reach the heathen them¬ 
selves. The radicals herd together and talk to hear 
themselves talk, but in the Chautauqua, while you 
would have to dilute your message, you would have 
a chance to make new converts. Gregg has been out 
with them for a season, talking on Education; I know 
that he would help put you on.” 

“What is a Chautauqua like?” asked Jeffrey. (This 
cultural institution had not yet touched Virginia.) 

“You don’t mean to say you don’t know?” cried 
Hughley, to whom they were as familiar as red barns 
or real-estate billboards. 

“Never came in contact with one in my life.” 

“Lord, but Virginia must be a strange country. 
Nearly every town up here has one,—the chambers of 
commerce and churches see to that. I can’t say that 
I enjoy them any more, but the majority do. . . . Let’s 
see,—I don’t know that I was ever called upon to de¬ 
scribe one before.Well, I think of a Chautau¬ 

qua as a big tent on the edge of a small town. Dog 
fennell and jimson and smart weed are growing all 
around it. The sun is very hot and there is no air in¬ 
side. The fat women have sweat running down their 
faces in spite of their dripping handkerchiefs and 
waving palm-leaf fans. The boys and girls get up from 





CABLES OF COBWEB 


181 


their folding chairs, now and then, and go outside to 
get some lemonade or some ice cream, while the 
younger children look for their chewing-gum in the 
saw-dust. The platform manager, in a suit of moist 
white duck, sits up in front on a rostrum built of 
smelly new boards. There is a piano beside him. With 
the exception of the stars the performers are worn- 
out preachers and cast-off politicians.” 

“But the stars?” Jeffrey interrupted. 

“—are the Whitefaced Singing Monkey, or Carrie 
Nation, or Jingo, the Intelligent Jack-ass, or William 
Jennings Bryan, or the Celebrated Blingo Band. All 
the speakers have to do, aside from mopping their 
faces and drawing their checks, is to tell funny stories; 
and, above all, to say, ‘This is the, finest town, in 
the most splendid county, in the most illustrious and 
representative state, of the grandest and most perfect 
country on which God’s all powerful sun ever shone.’ 
That’s all.” 

He got up from his chair with a smile of satisfac¬ 
tion. 

“Not a very tempting scene,” Jeffrey commented 
drily. “And you think that’s where I belong?” 

“No, I didn’t say that, but you will admit that such 
an institution offers its opportunities. You get the 
crowd under the impression that it is going to be 
amused by a talk on ‘Our Great American Humorists.’ 
You start off telling them just what I said; then give 
them a lot of stories, and, by way of parenthesis, in¬ 
form them that the funniest book you ever read is 
Tess of the D’Urhervilles or Dostoieffsky’s Crime and 
Punishment; tell them that their women are the fair¬ 
est you’ve ever seen, and that the reason you think 
so may be found in Ross’ Social Psychology, or 
Buckle’s History of Civilization, or D’Annunzio’s 
Triumph of Death. That way you would soon raise 


182 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the standard of Chatauqua and make it a real educa¬ 
tional force.” 

“I’d be lynched,” said Jeffrey. 

“Oh, you’re determined to be odd, so be odd, old 
boy,—and good night.” 


XXIII 


T HE invitations to the fifty-first commencement 
of Argyle college were just off the press, and it 
was not without a certain boastful sense of pride, 
akin to the vulgarity of the self-made, that he mailed 
these bits of frosted parchment to Yost and Fitz¬ 
patrick at Wythe,—Yost would spread the news 
among the others of the college and they would know 
that, in spite of everything, he had not utterly failed,— 
and to his mother at Mill Creek. He felt assured that 
he would be graduated cum laude, but he would not 
certainly know until the last day when the programs 
were out. Then he would enclose one in a homeward 
bound letter, explaining that his mother might enjoy 
seeing the graduation program of a Northern school! 
He knew that his father would be made glad also, 
but he did not begrudge him this pleasure. His heart 
was still bitter when he thought of his father, and 
while his resentment was not so keen as it had been 
when under his dominance, he could not by any means 
bring himself to think of going back, after graduation, 
to visit at his home. His mother had written that 
Mr. Collingsworth was much broken by the separa¬ 
tion, that everything would be different, and that he 
would be received by both of them with full forgive¬ 
ness. She was unfortunate in the use of the word “for¬ 
giveness”, for Jeffrey was by no means sure that he 
had done anything for which there was a need to be for¬ 
given. He knew that in his mother’s heart there was 
no thought of patronage, but he suspected, somehow, 
that his father had caused her to use the word. He 
longed once more to walk down the winding country 


184 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


lanes among the rolling hills, and beside the singing 
water brooks; he hungered to look again at the quaint 
old houses of Oldbern, set back from the cobbled 
street, and to pay his vows by the side of the crumb¬ 
ling marbles where his ancestors slept; he wanted to 
touch again the smooth, worn surfaces of the old ma¬ 
hogany and walnut, and to climb the curving stairway 
to his room, guided by the light of a flickering candle; 
he wanted to see once more the honest black faces 
of the darkies, lighted by smiles of welcome; he 
wanted to answer her call of loneliness and to go to 
his mother and to feel her arms about him. But he 
could not. Resolutely, he put the thought aside and 
plunged into work. 

The examinations did not disturb him this year, for 
he had so loved his work that it had been play, even 
as McKaig had said. It was only a question, toward 
the last days, of finding time, and to this end he had 
managed to secure a transfer of his paper route, and a 
dismissal from service at the home of Edgerton Rice. 
Rice had endeared himself to Jeffrey by the manner in 
which he received the news of his appointment in 
Chicago. He had laughed at having been the innocent 
cause of what he was pleased to call his downfall, but 
on being shown the last of the essays on comparative 
religion (Jeffrey had been careful not to let him see 
the preceeding ones) had complimented him:— 

“Religion is not an ignoble subject/’ he had said, 
“it is worthy of a better pen; and comparative religion 
offers a field where the fancy may be free to dwell 
among a noble family of gods and heroes, where one 
may walk in fields of asphodel with Attis and Adonis, 
Freya and Dionysos, or sport with oreads and sprites; 
or dare the threatening shears of Atropos. You have 
been premature, perhaps, in venturing into a field pre¬ 
empted by great scholars, but you have, at all events, 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


185 


written a thing that is beyond comparison with these 
articles on natural food. But it does make me sad to 
see, by the side of your paragraph on Demeter, an ad¬ 
vertisement of pills for ‘lost manhood.’ But that is the 
price one has to pay for living in a commercial age.” 


XXIV 


( 1 ) 

F RIDAY, Saturday and Sunday of the first week 
in June were given to the commencement exer¬ 
cises. On the first day, in the early afternoon, 
there was a picnic, out under the elms, where several 
of the alumni made speeches. The crowd of returning 
graduates was growing larger every hour. Jeffrey 
found these mid-Western folk friendly and easy to 
approach. The women were eager to tell their former 
classmates, or, indeed, any one who would listen, how 
their children had teethed, and grown, and received 
distinction in this and that. They listened patiently 
to the less interesting tales of other women, but, at 
the first pause, feverishly broke in with—“But my 
John is six feet two,” or “Sallie’s music teacher, who 
studied with deReszke in Paris, says that she has a 
remarkable voice.” 

The old men were telling of how they never wore 
gloves when they played base ball, and of how they 
had taken the president’s carriage to pieces and put 
it together again in the chapel. It seemed to Jeffrey 
that every white-haired man in Illinois had seen Lin¬ 
coln, or had heard the great debate with Douglas. 
They described that historic occasion with great 
gusto. Many boasted that they had shaken Lincoln’s 
hand; and one old man took Jeffrey aside, after he 
had expressed his unstinted admiration, and told him 
of some letters which the great president had written 
to his father— “And I keep them locked up in my 
safe. Abe wasn’t married then, but he wanted to get 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


187 


married, and my father had suggested some likely 
women, and Abe wrote back describing, in pretty 
plain language, just why he wouldn’t have this one, 
and why that one didn’t suit him. Yes, sir, he was a 
great man, but his language was too strong, some¬ 
times, for delicate folks. Those letters ought to be 
published. They would show how human the man 
was, and what a Rabelaisian sense of humor he had, 
but I wouldn’t do it for a thousand dollars. It would 
kill the respect that some of these Y. M. C. A. people 
have for Lincoln. They don’t want a human Lincoln. 
But I get ’em out now and then and have a good laugh. 
If you’ll come down to Pendava some time I’ll show 
them to you. Why he said about one woman that”— 

lowering his voice to a whisper—“ ‘she. 

.’ Yes, sir, Lincoln was the greatest man 

this country ever had.” 

During the afternoon Goddard took time to inform 
Jeffrey that he had seen the class records and that he 
was being put down for a cum laude —“I will write to 
Fitzpatrick, after commencement, that you have ful¬ 
filled all that he expected,” he said. “We don’t often 
accept men so informally, or without official transfer, 
but I don’t believe the college has suffered in your 
case”—he pressed Jeffrey’s hand and turned away to 
avoid an awkward speech of thanks. 

“Bless Heaven!” Jeffrey said to himself that night, 
“here is one thing in the world that I have touched 
without hurt. I hope I can get away without making 
some dreadful break, or losing a friend.” Some day 
he hoped to have enough to do something for Argyle 
in return for the friendly services it had meted out to 
him. He regretted now that he should be unable to 
attend the alumni banquet, but he had promised the 
comrades that he would speak on the Square, and it 
was too late to change. He had grown popular among 




188 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


his fellow socialists, and had brought new life into the 
Local. They liked his speeches which were fervent, 
violent, eloquent and, sometimes, even logical. He 
took the results of the class-room to this humble 
forum and there translated them into simple terms 
applicable to the economic struggle. And now that he 
was going away, they had asked for a final speech on 
this night when the town, in addition to its Saturday 
night throng of shoppers and pleasure-seekers, would 
be filled with the guests of the college. 

Before going to bed he looked over the notes of his 
speech. “If they don’t know the materialistic con¬ 
ception of history after tomorrow night,” he ex¬ 
claimed, in a burst of conceit, “it won’t be my fault.” 

( 2 ) 

The first days of June in Illinois are not always full 
of the warmth and sunshine that one expects, but 
on this commencement day Nature smiled down in a 
most genial mood. Among the tree-tops, as in the 
grass below, the bees made of industry a melody, and 
on the eaves of tidy cottages the sparrows, reckless 
of convention, abandoned themselves to shameless 
sport. Caps, tilted at every conceivable angle, dashed 
here and there about the campus over gowns that 
fluttered in protest at the lack of dignity. The wearers 
of these academic vestments chattered excitedly, 
puffed out with importance—“We are to meet at the 
Gym”—“Stand up when he says ‘Members of the 
Senior class’ ”—“I wonder if she will sew this tassel 
for me?”—“Have you seen my big brother going 
along this way?”—“I am going on to New York”— 
“Won’t that be jolly!”—” 

Breakfast was an ordeal, and lunch was a maze. 
Food was beneath contempt. These people had re- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


189 


ceived culture, stamped and sealed, or were about 
to, and were now going forth to enlighten an expectant 
world. 

The hours passed with incredible rapidity, and, be¬ 
fore they knew it, the seniors had been assembled at 
the gymnasium, and, led by the faculty, filed into 
their places on the stage. Then they were standing 
up, singing the college hymn; then they were hear¬ 
ing the address of the pompous United States sen¬ 
ator,—a “patent medicine king”—telling them of their 
duty to serve God and country, and of how he had 
had to struggle to get where he was. There were 
flowers and banners and gay dresses, and the audit¬ 
orium was packed with proud fathers and mothers. 

Jeffrey did not hear much that was said by the 
speaker. He did not see the audience. He hated sit¬ 
ting in front of a crowd. If he could do something 
he did not mind it, but to sit still and feel people 
looking at him was unpleasant. Any way he was not 
comfortable, now that he was here. He was glad to 
get his degree,—it was a kind of union-label, admit¬ 
ting him to organized respectability. Every one had 
been friendly; the members of the faculty had been 
uniformly kind and tolerant; the students had wel¬ 
comed him, and in his class he was received in the 
warmest fellowship. During the last few days the 
girls had reproved him for his aloofness, and had chat¬ 
tered so gaily that he almost regretted his hours of 
solitude. Still he was unhappy. In spite of all their 
efforts he was a stranger in a strange land. The others 
on the platform were being watched by their parents, 
by old friends. They were enjoying this initial suc¬ 
cess under the eyes of a world in which they had 
grown up. He was out of it, a foreigner. His heart 
was back in mountains, hundreds of miles away, and 
he saw another Commencement where his classmates 


190 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


for three years were receiving their degrees. The 
people among whom he sat agreed for the most part 
with his ideas, theories of life, his mind; the others 
were akin to his soul,—whatever that was. Barriers 
were everywhere. Some groups had congenial views 
and discordant tastes; others, springing from similar 
environments, shared their tastes but could not agree 
about doctrines. His graduation was not a triumph; 
it did not have a social value. What satisfaction 
would one get from an Oxford doctorate on Mars? 

Then he was conscious that the class was rising 
in response to the speaker. They were being told 
that America needed them. After a minute or more 
of eloquence, the speaker subsided and Goddard rose, 
his massive head of white hair contrasting sharply 
with the black and crimson of his gown. He spoke 
only a few words, but somehow they made the florid 
oration of the fat politician seem the incarnation of 
vulgarity. In a moment he began to call the names 
of the class, and to announce their distinctions,— 

“Jeffrey Collingsworth/” 

Jeffrey arose from his seat in relief, his embarrass¬ 
ment falling away at the command for action. He 
stood for a moment before the president, while the 
dean was handing him his diploma. He heard the 
president’s voice, far off it seemed, saying “Cum 
Laude ,”—“with all privileges of the same—.” God¬ 
dard’s hair was like a halo and his voice was now 
mellow and sweet to his ears, but he felt alone, for 
all the throng about him, terribly alone. The blue 
ribboned roll of vellum seemed an empty thing, now 
that he had it. As he turned to march off the plat¬ 
form something made him, for the first time, look 
straight at the multitude. His glance was caught as 
by a magnet by something in the back of the great 
room. He seemed suddenly rooted to the spot in 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


191 


sheer amazement. He dropped his diploma on the 
floor. For there, in the last row, near the aisle, were 
his father and mother, and even at this distance he 
could see that their eyes shone with tears. 

How he recovered his diploma and got down from 
the platform, how the commencement exercises came 
to a close, he never knew. For there had come to 
him in that one glance at his father’s face—down 
which, unchecked, ran the tears of joy—, as by a 
blinding flash, the first revelation that John Collings¬ 
worth really loved him. He had never seen a tear 
in his father’s eye before; not even on the day they 
had found his grandfather dead and sitting erect on 
a rustic seat by the vine-clad sun dial, whose slender 
shadow had marked his hours for the last time; not 
then did his father weep. Fie was used to conceal 
his tender emotions; to express only his petty viol¬ 
ences. His father and his mother—both—there to 
see him! Letters, speeches, logic would not have 
convinced him. Their mere presence here, at this dis¬ 
tance from their home overwhelmed him; he was 
not alone! 

The idea had been born months and months before, 
indeed it had occurred to Mr. Collingsworth on the 
receipt of the first letter which followed the long days 
of anxious waiting. His wife had been overjoyed, 
and had trembled lest he change his mind. Sworn to 
secrecy, no word of this intended visit did she send 
to her son, but day after day she hummed lively airs 
as she went about the house, and night after night 
she unfailingly marked off the spent figures on the 
calendar. Once more Mr. Collingsworth began to 
dream dreams of the future of his son. He hoped that 
a year of hardship would change the boy’s outlook on 
life, and bring him back to the church and to a decent 
sense of respect for the traditions of his class. If it 


192 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


had, and surely it must, he would,—well, what 
wouldn’t he do? But first he must see and know. A 
free-thinking socialist he would not tolerate. Such a 
person would bring discredit upon the family, the 
community, the county and the state; more especially 
upon him and the methods he had employed in rearing 
the boy. He would be laughed at for making such a 
failure. He was ready to confess to his wife, and even 
to his son, that he had made grave mistakes, but he 
had no wish to hear the mocking of his neighbors. 
Nor did he wish to return with a drunken profligate 
who would spend his estate in wild nights of riot. He 
felt sure, however, that Jeffrey was not a drunkard; 
it was the matter of his opinions that he feared most 
of all. During the vacations that his son had spent 
at home he had noticed that Jeffrey read curious little 
pamphlets which he had taken care to insert between 
the pages of The Review of Reviews or the Atlantic 
Monthly. Mr. Collingsworth had seized upon some 
of these, and, after an indignant glance, had thrown 
them into the fireplace. He was sorry now that he 
had acted with such impetuosity, and knew that it 
would have been better to have reasoned with Jeffrey. 
He had formulated an argument for the annihilation 
of socialism, and if the chance presented itself he 
would bring it forth with great good humor: “The 
socialists,” he would say, “plan to divide everything 
up,” and then he would go on to show how, in a very 
few days, the wealth of the world would return into 
the hands of the clever! Yes, he would effect a recon¬ 
ciliation after he had seen and come to be assured 
that it was possible. He and his wife would go to ' 
commencement and surprise Jeffrey. 

They agreed that Argyle was a singular little city, 
but they admired its cleanliness and its air of strict 
propriety. Its prim angularity was suggestive, some- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


193 


how, of the ten commandments. And the hotel to 
which they were directed, The Puritan House, was 
polished until it fairly shone with virtue. 

They did not wish to spoil the surprise by an early 
encounter with their son, so they waited impatiently 
until they knew that the exercises were under way 
before they entered the grounds. Standing out under 
the campus elms, Mr. Collingsworth cast an apprais¬ 
ing eye upon the buildings, and, while he made a 
mental note that they were inferior to those at Wythe 
and the University of Virginia, he recognized that 
they wore an air of quiet respectability. Mrs. Collings¬ 
worth, knowing that her son had trod upon these very 
pavements, thought that everything was beautiful. 
She saw that the women had faces much like those of 
the women at home, that they wore skirts of decent 
length and modest material, and, so far as she had 
seen, did not chew gum. She was thoroughly satis¬ 
fied that all was well. When the audience had risen 
to sing “Hail Argyle” they entered and were ushered 
to seats near the door. 

With only twenty seniors sitting on the platform, 
hungry eyes required but a second to find the object 
of their search. The boy’s face showed lines of care 
and deprivation, thought his mother, careful to dis¬ 
cover every change that time had wrought; and, fur¬ 
thermore, he seemed strangely sad and broken, in con¬ 
trast to the alert forms and expectant faces of the 
others. All this was unapparent to her husband, who, 
after brief comparisons, decided that his son had a more 
thoughtful and scholarly bearing than the rest, that 
he wore a look of bored unconcern quite fitting to the 
occasion. “He has the blood and breeding of a gentle¬ 
man,” he boasted to himself. 

Secretly, Mr. Collingsworth was annoyed to ob¬ 
serve, out of the corner of his eye, that his wife’s hand- 


194 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


kerchief made frequent, albeit furtive trips from her 
lap to the region of her spectacles. Such evidences of 
emotion, however quiet, seemed out of place among 
such a multitude of strangers. 

Fortunately the commencement orator, an alumnus 
of the college, uttered nothing more than the usual 
American platitudes, all in keeping with average relig¬ 
ious beliefs, average moralities, and average patriot¬ 
ism. Any Odd Fellow from Iowa, Presbyterian from 
Virginia, or Methodist from Massachusetts would 
have found therein stated the middle class maxims 
which very accurately indicate his cultural level. 
Moreover, just prior to this speech, there had been a 
prayer which made proper mention of every person in 
the Trinity. These things, together with the cata¬ 
logue which Mr. Collingsworth had secured the day 
before, were amply reassuring to one who had feared 
to encounter, in this Northern school, the rankest 
infidelity. The president seemed to be a gentleman, 
despite his business-like address; and, altogether, Mr. 
Collingsworth was glad that his son had been so well 
received in such an institution. 

It was not until the young man went forward to 
receive his diploma that he observed his drawn fea¬ 
tures, the slight stoop of his shoulders and the evident 
sadness in his abstracted gaze. “Too much work,” 
thought his father, now conscience-stricken, “He looks 
nearer thirty than twenty-one.” Then, to his great 
surprise, he heard the president announce, with a little 
more feeling than before, it seemed, that Jeffrey was 
graduated cum laude. “Why the young scoundrel, 
what grit he has shown—to work his way, and, in 
spite of it, to secure honors! Confound it! Where is 
my handkerchief!” 


XXV 


( 1 ) 

J EFFREY had almost to pinch himself to be as¬ 
sured of this amazing reality. His father seemed 
so affable—lovable even—and so at home in this 
strange environment, among men and women whose 
creeds he would, in other days, have denounced with 
evangelistic fury. With Dr. Goddard—to whom this 
parental pilgrimage seemed perfectly natural, and not 
a whit surprising—he got on famously, praising the 
college, inquiring into its history, and expressing his 
gratitude for the kindness that had been shown his 
son. As soon as possible the reunited family got 
away from the chattering throngs—Mrs. Collings¬ 
worth wanted to see Jeffrey’s room. The request 
brought him to earth with a thud. He thought ra¬ 
pidly:—a number of inflamatory books and journals 
must be removed, or this agreeable state of things 
would quickly pass. He excused himself a moment 
and ran over to where Hughley was conversing with 
some of his friends— 

“For God’s sake, Hughley,” he whispered, drawing 
him aside, “run up to my room and ditch all my books 
and papers. Take them out and away, anywhere, 
please.” 

Hughley, sensing the seriousness of the situation, 
agreed instantly, and with a broad grin rushed off on 
the errand. 

Jeffrey led his parents around back of the gymna¬ 
sium, past the athletic field, paused to point out this 
and that landmark, and was thus enabled to prolong 


196 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


an otherwise three-minute walk into nearly fifteen 
minutes. 

“Dear me, it doesn’t look nearly so comfortable as 
your room at Wythe,” said Mrs. Collingsworth, “why, 
there aren’t any curtains! You needed your mother.” 
Then, as he threw off his gown,—“And your clothes 
need mending—just look at this frayed collar! And 
what does make you so thin? You don’t look as if 
you’d had a good meal for ages. Do you get enough 
where you board?” 

“Enough, but not as good as at home,” he said, 
rather wistfully. 

“It is singular that you don’t have any books here,” 
observed Mr. Collingsworth. Hughly, in his zealous 
anxiety, had done his work all too thoroughly. 

“Books are expensive, and I do most of my reading 
at the library,” Jeffrey explained. 

“I think,” said Mr. Collingsworth, after a long 
season of talk in which the recent history of the 
servants, horses and fields had been reviewed, “that, 
if you have no obligations for the evening, you would 
better come with us to the hotel and have a good 
steak dinner. You look as if you need it, sir.” 

Jeffrey suddenly remembered his engagement to 
speak at the Square. 

“I shall be delighted to go, but—ah—I didn’t expect 
you, and I shall—ah—have to leave you at seven 
thirty—an engagement with some of the fellows; I 
could be back again by nine, though. I’m awfully 
sorry. 

That’s to be expected at such a time,” said his father 
graciously, “and we don’t want to interfere with your 
plans. We’ll be here several days. Come along and 
we will order an early dinner.” 

At the hotel another surprise was in store. They 
had gone up to the room to await the preparation of 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


197 


the special dinner Mr. Collingsworth insisted upon 
ordering. 

“Now,” said that gentleman solemnly, “you are 
aware that I do not approve of what is called drink¬ 
ing, but I am not so low as to be a prohibitionist. I 
am not a crank, sir, and I thought it fitting on this 
auspicious occasion, to provide a little ceremony.” So 
saying, he opened a great, black handbag and pro¬ 
duced, carefully wrapped in folds of soft cloth, a tall 
black bottle. “This wine was bottled by your grand¬ 
father before the civil war. There is none better in 
this country.” Digging further down, he brought 
forth a box, inside which, protected by cotton, were 
three glasses. “I came provided, you see, sir,” and 
I propose to drink this in the privacy of this upper 
chamber, not in the spirit of conviviality, but of sacra¬ 
ment, to the permanent reunion of this little family.” 
As they brought their glasses together it seemed that 
an inconvenient mist had gathered around the eyes 
of these three communicants, and the place seemed 
holy. 

There was already gathered a throng of people 
around the square; people going in and out of soda 
fountains, restaurants and candy stores; people look¬ 
ing at the shop windows; lovers looking at nothing 
and seeing everything, and loafers looking at every¬ 
thing and seeing nothing. As near the center of the 
square as the railing would allow the socialists had 
placed a square box, above which, held by a narrow 
board nailed to its side, was a gasoline torch so 
arranged as to illuminate the speaker’s face. Thomas 
was there with a huge armful of the Appeal, and 
Olsen was ready to sell an assortment of red-covered 
pamphlets. Gibbings was looking at his watch. 

“It is time Comrade Collingsworth came,” he an- 


198 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


nounced uneasily. “I don’t want to open the meeting 
without him.” 

“He will be here any minute, you can depend,” 
answered Olsen. “I think we had better have Com¬ 
rade Blackman begin to sing something.” 

Blackman had lately come into the Argyle Local 
from Little Rock where he had been a singing teacher. 
He had a tremendous voice, requiring ample room if 
it were not to be deafening; and he loved nothing 
better than to display his scales. He welcomed the 
opportunity and began a Socialist hymn to the tune 
of “There were Ninety and Nine.” In addition to 
the thirty or forty comrades, the crowd began to draw 
near to discover what it was all about. 

As he hastened down the street trying to recollect 
the outline of his speech, Jeffrey was thankful that 
six blocks intervened between the Puritan Hotel and 
the Public Square, and congratulated himself that he 
was safe. 

“Damn it all! I can’t be what I am sure he wants 
me to be, and I cannot share his beliefs; but O! it is 
good to know that he cares, and that I can go home 
sometimes and be friends again. Good old Dad, I’d 
have never dreamed it!” He skipped along with re¬ 
newed courage. 

There were probably two hundred people gathered 
around the torch by this time, and when, flushed by 
the hurry and excitement of the day, Jeffrey arrived 
at the impromptu stand, Gibbings was greatly relieved. 

“Glad you are here, Comrade Collingsworth,” he 
whispered in Jeffrey’s ear,—“Congratulations on your 
success at college! Are you ready to begin when the 
song is done?” 

“Yes,—I’m sorry I couldn’t get away sooner,” re¬ 
turned the speaker of the evening, coming close to 
his ear. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


199 


“I am going to introduce you first. I won’t say but 
a few words,” Gibbings replied. 

But he had detected the fumes of wine on Jeffrey’s 
breath, and, being a prohibitionist and a teetotaler, 
was greatly pained by the discovery. Sometime after¬ 
ward he confided to one of the comrades that he 
greatly feared Collingsworth was going to the bad. 
“I don’t think it wise to encourage drinking men to 
represent the movement,” he said, with grave em¬ 
phasis,—“It turns people away from the cause, and, 
besides, drinkers can’t be trusted.” 

The speech of introduction, as is apt to be the case, 
was much longer than “a few wordsit resolved it¬ 
self into a pretty thorough history of the socialist 
movement. 

When Jeffrey had gone Mr. Collingsworth paced 
the room, smoking his cigar with great satisfaction. 

“Isn’t it wonderful to have our boy again!” said his 
now radiant wife. “I do hope he can come home with 
us and spend the summer. I’m worried about his 
health. Do you think this climate is good for him?” 

“I dare say it isn’t. Not so good as in our Virginia 
valleys. But we’ll see if he won’t go with us. He 
may have already found some position and be obliged 
to stay, but he will know that he is welcome, at all 
events. And if he comes,” he went on, breathing out 
his hopes in great clouds of fragrant smoke, “I will 
offer to send him to Charlottesville or Johns Hopkins 
for graduate work, or, if he is still set on the North, 
I will let him go to Princeton. He is of age now and 
his own master”—this a little sadly—“Perhaps he 
may want to settle on the farm, and if so I will turn 
most of it over to him. He could take a term at the 
V. P. I. and study scientific agriculture,—he wouldn’t 
know anything about it otherwise. He likes science, 


200 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


and agriculture is the only thing that science is fit 
for. But if he has other plans I won’t hamper him. In 
any event I have planned to give him, as a graduation 
present and a birthday gift in honor of his coming of 
age, a check for ten thousand dollars.” 

“What!” exclaimed Mrs. Collingsworth, overjoyed 
by this unheard of generosity. 

“Yes, madam, I’m going to do that very thing. I 
didn’t say anything about it until I saw how things 
were up here. But when I saw the esteem in which 
our boy is held by the president of this college; when 
I found that he had, under unspeakable conditions, 
completed his education with honor, standing third 
in a class of twenty; and when I, on going to his room, 
discovered, instead of a lot of those infernal pam¬ 
phlets which I feared to find, two good books, I made 
up my mind that he is worth my assistance.” 

“But I thought you said there weren’t any books 
up there?” queried his wife. 

“I found them on a chair, beneath a pillow, a circum¬ 
stance that, in itself, was quite convincing. Just two 
books in that boy’s room, and they were my father’s 
copy of Religio Medici and a small Bible. I was never 
more pleased in my life.—But I want to walk around 
some until Jeffrey gets back. Let’s go out, my dear, 
and look over the town a bit by night. It will do us 
both good.” 

But Mrs. Collingsworth was too worn out by the 
events of this glorious day to be in the spirit for a 
walk. She wanted to be alone for a while. 

“I think I will lie down until Jeffrey returns. You 
go out and finish your cigar.” 

“It will be my third since dinner,” chuckled her 
husband, reaching for his hat and cane. 

He did not approve of these straight, mystery¬ 
killing streets, and yet tonight they provided excellent 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


201 


avenues on which to spend an excess of exuberant 
energy. He twirled his cane like a young boy. The 
light of the streets was insufficient to dim the stars 
overhead, and the sight of familiar constellations but 
added to his satisfaction. Block after block he walked, 
amused by the most trifling circumstance. To a small 
boy, chasing a distracted alley cat, he gave a dime 
to forego this torturous pleasure, and paused long 
enough to ask his name.— 

“Olaf Svenningsen,” responded the youngster, eye¬ 
ing the gold-headed cane with suspicion. 

“Spell it, please,” urged Mr. Collingsworth. 

“I am thankful,” he said to himself as he walked 
on, “that we do not have these heathen names in the 
South, where we are still Americans.” 

As he proceeded toward the center of the town the 
streets grew more populous. Now and then he turned 
aside to read the inscription in front of a building 
more or less vaguely resembling a church. He had 
passed a German Lutheran and a Swedish Methodist 
before he came to a plain American Presbyterian 
church : “Ah, this is better.” Then he saw on the bul¬ 
letin board the name’ of the minister: Rev. Karl 
Gerenberg. 

“Good Heavens! The country is over-run by foreign¬ 
ers,” he muttered. 

Now he was on the Square. Just facing him was a 
small figure of Lincoln, done in bronze, and a little 
farther on was a curiously bizarre drinking fountain. 

“The North and South would have been on better 
terms if Lincoln had lived,” he reflected, as though 
conscious of a sectional rapprochment. 

His cigar had burned to a stub, and, seeing a red- 
fronted stand on the opposite side of the street, 'he 
crossed over. After filling his now empty case, he 
stood for a moment by the spluttering gas-lighter 


202 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


and looked out benevolently upon the festive park. 
Made curious by the gathering'on the other side, from 
which rose intermittently, above the confused sounds 
of the strollers, the voice of a street orator, he wended 
his way across, hesitating now to glance wonderingly 
at one of the three or four automobiles that were 
pertly thrust among the buggies and wagons against 
what was wont to be the hitching rail. He had seen 
a few of these new inventions in Richmond and 
Lynchburg, but they were, as yet, an unaccustomed 
sight. Against the rubber tire of one of these he 
tapped his walking stick contemptuously. “What 
could they do in southern clay?” 

Proceeding through the center of the park, the walks 
of which were lined with well-filled benches, he came 
within range of the speaker’s voice. The man’s back 
was turned, and from his position the gasoline torch 
concealed his head. 

“Is it the Salvation Army, or patent medicine?” he 
wondered. He had heard that the Army was a use¬ 
ful agency in charity, but in his work he had never 
encountered it save in brief visits to larger towns. 
He saw no uniforms here tonight, so he guessed the 
orator was extolling the virtues of some liniment. He 
glanced about him at the people who were listening; 
they were mostly foreigners,—Swedes, Germans, 
Italians,—and their clothes, while not ragged, pro¬ 
claimed them on the level with “trash.” The better 
dressed and more intelligent paused for a moment and 
then scornfully passed on. Mr. Collingsworth was 
on the point of following their example when the 
soap-boxer half turned, and in a now clear voice 
demanded— 

“And why is it that you are betrayed by the teachers 
in your schools and the preachers in your churches? 
Do they raise their voices in your behalf in the time 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


203 


of a strike when labor is threatened? Do they support 
you, the wage-slaves, or your masters, the capitalists? 
You know the answer to that; but why? Because the 
church which you call ‘yours,’ and the school which 
you call ‘public’ is dependent on the money of the 
employing-class, and the clergy and the teachers are 
co-slaves with you, and, like you, haven’t the intel¬ 
ligence to see that their cause is one with yours. They 
are bought and paid for; the prostitutes of a criminal 
system of pernicious greed.” 

“Damnable!” ejaculated Mr. Collingsworth, but as 
he said it something about the speaker’s voice awoke 
an appalling fear. He strode over a little nearer to 
where he could see the face of the blasphemer. 

“God in Heaven!” he groaned, “Its my son!” And 
the world fell down about him with a crash. The 
heavens that before had been sprinkled with stars 
turned into a most malefic blackness. For a second 
he stood rigid, some rending power within well nigh 
compelling him to cry out his agony; then, turning 
about with an effort, he slunk away into the protect¬ 
ing shadows of the trees. 


( 2 ) 

“That speech was a great success, Comrade Collings¬ 
worth,” Olsen volunteered, when Jeffrey stepped off 
the box to the accompaniment of generous applause. 
“It is the best you have ever done, the spirit was with 
you, as the preachers say,” Thomas contributed, smil¬ 
ing broadly. Muttering his thanks to these congra¬ 
tulatory comrades as they pressed forward, Jeffrey’s 
eyes sought an opening through which he might escape 
to return to his waiting parents. He was conscious that 
he had spoken with a greater ability than ever before, 
and it made him happy to find just how well it had 


204 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


been received; but it seemed, after all, a very sec¬ 
ondary triumph after the rare miracle of the after¬ 
noon. “How good it is to be alive/’ he exclaimed as 
he ran along, fairly hugging himself in his ecstasy;—a 
college degree, won with distinction in the very pres¬ 
ence of his dear mother who had come to him as 
though borne through the sky on a wishing rug; a new 
father, the like of whom he had never expected to 
see—a man concerning whom he had been compelled 
in the space of a few hours completely to reverse all 
his previous opinions; the gratitude of his comrades; 
a flattering position awaiting him in the great city of 
Chicago—O! it was like living in Arabian Nights! 
He ran, breathless, up the steps of the hotel. He must 
tell them how happy they had made him. 

He found Mr. Collingsworth waiting in the lobby, 
seated near the door. He saw at a glance that some¬ 
thing was wrong. His father looked immeasurably 
older than when they had parted; his face was white 
and drawn, and his clothes seemed to sag about him 
as he slouched down in the leathern chair. 

“Whatever is the matter?” he began, “are you—?” 

Mr. Collingsworth held up a remonstrating hand— 
“Nothing at all, sir. I am just a little weary—a little 
weary.” Then with a strange, twisted smile. “But 
you, sir, have you been having a good time this eve¬ 
ning?” 

“Yes and no,” answered Jeffrey, conscious that there 
was something back of what his father said,—“If it 
hadn’t been keeping me away from you and mother, 
I should have enjoyed myself immensely. If I hadn’t 
given my word, I wouldn’t have gone, but now it’s 
over, and I haven’t anything else to keep me away . . . . 
I suppose you will want to go to the Baccalaureate 
tomorrow ?” 

“It makes no difference whatever to me, sir. I wish 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


205 


you would see whether that little writing room back 
there is empty.” 

When they were alone, Mr. Collingsworth list¬ 
lessly drew forth his morocco case, selected a cigar; 
then, after carefully cutting off the end, tossed it into 
a brass cuspidor. 

“You see,” he began, “I have been living this day 
in a fool’s paradise. For several months, I have been 
building my hopes on the slender foundations of de¬ 
sire. I have been dreaming that you would turn away 

from certain follies, and become a gentleman.” 

“What do you mean, sir?.” 

“You will see in a moment, my son; I have the 
floor, and I shan’t bother you again after Monday—” 
“Why, what in the world?” 

“Please let me continue. I know, and have known 
for some time, that I made a great mistake in bringing 
you up too strictly, and in not permitting you to have 
some contacts with the world before you went to col¬ 
lege. I have heard of some of your escapades at 
Wythe, and I don’t blame you, but myself. I came 
up here with your mother to ask your forgiveness, 
sir, for my blunders, and to see if there was a founda¬ 
tion upon which to build some degree of comrade¬ 
ship between us. Until you become a father you will 
not know what that longing is. This day I thought that 
I had realized even more than my wildest dreams, 

and I was all excited over it.then, I. 

foolishly,” Mr. Collingsworth tried heroically to smile, 
“took a little walk, and stumbled over the abyss. . . 
So I don’t care now. I was angry at first and wanted 
to smash things; but there is your mother to think 
of—and I am tired of strife. I just made up my mind 
to tell you that I am interested in you, and love you as 
my son, but I think it is better that we continue to 
live in separate parts of the world. You won’t fit 






206 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


into my world. I mention it because I was on the eve 
of making a proposition that would have made your 
mother and me very happy; but that is all ended. Per¬ 
haps it is beter for both of us. . . What are you going 
to do for a living, now that you are through school?” 

During this speech, Jeffrey had been made aware of 
intolerable agony. What a terrible ending to this 
beautiful day. He couldn’t be angry at his father 
now. Not now. He was a different father from the 
one he had known as a small boy. He was no longer 
a fiery and belligerent tyrant, denouncing his son; 
he was a miserable, pitiable, shrunken old man, whose 
hopes had been utterly killed. And he was the mur¬ 
derer. Some evil thing was pressing white hot irons 
against his eyeballs; some giant hand was crushing 
his throat. 

“Do you know what you are going to do for a 
living?” Mr. Collingsworth repeated. 

With an effort, Jeffrey found his voice— 

“I am going to Chicago. ... to work. ... on a 
magazine.” 

“What is the name of this magazine?” 

“The Flaming Future.” 

“I never heard of it. What salary will you get?” 

“Just my living.” Jeffrey answered, now almost as 
indifferent to life as his parent. 

“The Flaming Future, The Flaming Future,” re¬ 
peated Mr. Collingsworth, “something tells me that 
a magazine with that name won’t last very long. 
When had you planned to take up this work—to go 
to Chicago?” 

“I was going Tuesday, but now that.” 

“That suits me exactly, sir. I will use that as a 
plausible excuse for our returning home. I will tell 
your mother that you are obliged to get on to your 
work.” He rose wearily. “We will have to go up to 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


207 


the room where your mother expects us. I shall say 
nothing to her of what has happened—not now. There 
is no use destroying her happiness. . . And, while we 
are about it, I want to offer you a little graduation 
present, that may help to meet some of your expenses.” 

Drawing out a wallet, Mr. Collingsworth thought¬ 
fully extracted three bills; two hundreds, and one 
fifty. 

“I’d rather not, under the circumstances,” Jeffrey 
objected. 

“We haven’t quarrelled, remember,” suggested his 
father, “and let’s don’t fuss over the little things. 
We’ve both hurt each other, and there’s an end of it,” 
stuffing the money in his son’s pocket. 

“I wish you didn’t hate the Socialists so much; if 
you just understood.” 

“I don’t hate Socialists, sir; I don’t even know 
them. But did you ever see me happy among Hard¬ 
shell Baptists, or Methodists? No, sir, what I can’t 
understand is that a man who has been reared a 
gentleman should ever lower himself to the level of 
white trash. Let’s go up to your mother, sir.” 



XXVI. 


( 1 ) 



T BEST, when one is in a particularly cheerful 


and anticipatory mood, the approach to Chicago 


^ “*• is a little depressing. To a fastidious nose, it 
must seem that the metropolis of the Middle West has 
released all of the disagreeable smells in the world. 
Entering by the southwest side of the city, one 
passes near the stockyards, over the old, scum-covered 
canal that must ever recall Henley’s line about the 
“Rich deliquium of decay,” and through a black fog 
of soot and smoke which drapes itself about the place 
as a very mantle of evil. The train carries one over 
a wilderness of dirt, from which arises the stench of 
mortification and the clanging sounds that betoken 
business. Mile after mile of blackened brick cottages, 
then more miles of tall apartment houses against 
whose mortar-splashed backs are drab gray balconies, 
connected by zig-zag stairways, from which, across 
little back gardens, run criss-cross clothes-lines, flap¬ 
ping with their grotesque burdens of half washed 
undergarments—of such is the scenery of Chicago 
when it is viewed from the window of a passing car. 

Jeffrey found the journey tasteless and miserable. 
He tried to face the future with hopeful eyes, and 
to fancy the pleasant greetings of a new fellowship, 
the possibilities of a career; but somehow he failed. 
Outside, as he sped along, the fields were flat, and 
with all their pleasant greenery, bore no message to 
his heart. He saw them not. Instead he was think¬ 
ing of another journey on another train—southbound. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


209 


He had secured folders the day before when he had 
bade good-bye to his father and mother at Argyle, 
and with many a heartache he followed their own sad 
way, station by station. They would be at St. Louis 
now, and now they were nearing Nashville. He could 
see them as they would pass Wythe on the day fol¬ 
lowing, and when they arrived at the Oldbern way- 
station Tom would be there to meet them with the 
surrey. They would avoid passing through Oldbern, 
and would drive back over wooded hills to the farm, 
bitterly conscious of the futility of their hopes, and 
resigned to the long days of autumnal loneliness. Life 
seemed a blind thing, devoid of meaning. He had 
gone his way, keenly regretting his mother and list¬ 
lessly hating his father. Then, in a flash, a joyous 
revelation had come; he had seen his father in a new 
light, and, then, just as they had reached across the 
void to join hands, he had spoiled it all. He would 
have never done the thing deliberately, he told himself 
by way of comfort; it just happened. Now he was 
sadder than ever before, but there was no bitterness— 
just hurt. 

His father had seemed to wither, and his mother, 
while she had not actually been told the reason for 
their thinly veiled distress, divined it and suffered 
also. Of course it was something to have seen them 
even for a few days; it was good to have felt the blind 
hatred of the years fall away; good to know that his 
father loved him, was interested in him, and that now 
he could and would write to him; but to have dis¬ 
appointed him in such a fashion and at such a moment 
was too cruel,—it was fiendish. What made it worse 
was the fact that Mr. Collingsworth had now prac¬ 
tically nothing to do. The plantation was large, but 
with the passing of the years there had been estab¬ 
lished a routine thoroughly understood and carried 


210 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


out by the darkies, so that the owner was practically 
a figure head. The church at Oldbern had now called 
a young minister. Jeffrey added his father’s resigna¬ 
tion to the sum of his own misdeeds. Mr. Collings¬ 
worth had nothing left for his daily occupation but 
the perfunctory drive around the farm each morning, 
an occasional trip to Oldbern, and, perhaps, the solv¬ 
ing of some problem in chess, as he sat alone by the 
fireplace of the study. For the rest, he would spend 
his days in regret, and, in the evening, the burden 
of his conversations with his wife would be their mis¬ 
takes and their sorrow. It was a waste of life, Jeffrey 
saw; and he felt, just now, all too much to blame. 
Dreaming himself, he had spoiled the dreams of 
others. Perhaps he could induce his parents, for their 
spirits’ sake, to take the Geneva-Jerusalem pilgrimage, 
of which he so often had heard them speak. He al¬ 
most smiled when he thought of this. He would 
write to them about it. 

Coincident with this thought of Jerusalem came 
the first blast of the smells of Chicago. He looked out 
and saw that they had reached the city. Ignorant 
of the time that must intervene before they should 
bring up at the Dearborn St. Station, and with char¬ 
acteristic American impatience, he got up to get his 
things from the rack overhead. 

“It will be most an hour before we reach the sta¬ 
tion,” came in a musically mirthful voice from across 
the aisle. 

Jeffrey turned in some bewilderment, not having 
been aware before that there were any fellow passen¬ 
gers. What he saw was a pair of dancing brown 
eyes looking out of a face of peach blossoms. Just 
now the face was smiling, and the full red lips were 
parted enough to reveal an even row of white teeth. 

“Oh, thank you ! I thought we were there, by— . . . 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


211 


by . . . er . . . the smell of things,” he hazarded, re¬ 
suming his seat. 

“Then this is your first trip to Chicago? I guessed 
as much, or I shouldn’t have spoken. But I couldn’t 
resist it, when I saw how definitely you were pre¬ 
paring to depart.”—This time a more generous smile 
betrayed a dimple. 

“It was good of you to tell me. Ah—pardon me, 
but do you live here?” Then, fearing that he had 
presumed too much by the question—“for if you do, 

I feel that I ought to apologize for mentioning the 
smells.” 

“Not at all,” she laughed, “if you stay here long, you 
will come not to mind even the stock yards. I love it, 
with all the noise and dirt. I left Oberlin last year and 
have been studying here at the University ever since. 
You are just out of college, aren’t you?”—This with 
a glance at the pin on the lapel of his coat. 

“A three day’s graduate, taking my first position, 
but I rather wish I were going on to the University 
for work with Vincent and Small.” 

“They’re very good. I had some work with Small 
last year—studying the settlements and the like,” re¬ 
plied the young woman, picking up, with a gesture 
of dismissal, the magazine which she had been reading. 

Accepting this wordless suggestion, Jeffrey endeav¬ 
ored to turn his attention to the backs of apartments 
and the heaps of scrap-iron, but without overwhelm¬ 
ing success. He could not, for the life of him, keep 
decently away from the corner of his eye. Now the 
corner of one’s eye is a dangerous place to lurk, and 
to form the habit of hiding there is downright im¬ 
propriety. Yet, on occasion, the most scrupulous of 
persons will find it an irresistibly attractive angle of 
outlook upon things at which it would be highly im- • 
proper to stare. Indeed, the muscular structure of a 


212 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


rebellious and over-curious eye makes it oft times im¬ 
possible of righteous control. If this were not so, 
plain living and high thinking would not be held at 
so great a premium. What one chances to see as 
the result of this physical inevitability—one chances 
to see. Thus, for example, Jeffrey could not avoid 
noticing a very well turned ankle encased in a silken 
fabric which in no whit detracted from the limb it 
was designed to shield—or show; and again his glance 
was entangled for a moment in some flying strands 
of rich brown hair, strayed from beneath a broad- 
brimmed hat. Apart from its coloring, the face, he 
decided from these stolen observations, was not un¬ 
usual, feature by feature; yet the ensemble was some¬ 
how very reassuring; a face that could be trusted, one 
that spoke of health, kindness, humor, intelligence, 
and, withal, purpose. He began once more to be glad 
that he was going to live in Chicago; already he had 
begun to like it. His heart sank a little when he 
thought of the bigness of the place and how impos¬ 
sible it might be to meet again this calm young woman 
whose voice had, by some magic, dispelled his weight 
of misery. A commonplace remark, and lo, his fret¬ 
ting conscience had scampered away and tucked itself 
quite comfortably to bed. He wished that he might 
hear this music once again, but she had, with obvious 
finality, brought their brief interview to an end. 

It was not until the train was drawing into the 
depot, and the passengers had begun to crowd into 
the aisle, that he summoned courage for another 
speech: 

“I beg pardon, but if I should fail to be met by some 
friends I am expecting in the station, would you mind 
telling me how to get to 64 Preston Road, Rogers 
Park ?” 

“Certainly,” came the reply, but this time without 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


213 


an engaging smile, “when you go out of the station, 
you will find yourself facing north on Dearborn Street. 
Walk two blocks straight ahead until you come to the 
“L” stairway; take the Northwestern entrance and 
get on an Evanston train. At Rogers Park you will 
have no trouble finding your address.” Then with a 
nod of her pretty head she picked up a satchel and 
stepped into the aisle. Jeffrey noted that the three 
initials stamped on the end of the handbag were H. 
B. S. 

. “Good Lord, what efficiency!” he thought, as he 
thanked her. But it was not without a pang of regret 
that he lost sight of her as the crowd passed through 
the gate. 

( 2 ) 

Tucker had promised to meet him at the cigar 
counter in the waiting room where he would be 
standing with a copy of the Flaming Future in his 
hand. After a moment of bewilderment, he found the 
place, and the man—a great broad-shouldered giant, 
who looked more the part of a wrestler than that of 
an editor, and who was made conspicuous by wearing- 
white flannel trousers, a white silk shirt, a white 
Windsor tie, sandals instead of shoes, and neither 
coat nor hat. He stood by the cigar stand like a 
colossal whitewashed statue, and across his breast 
he was holding, so that all who ran might read, a 
vividly colored copy of his magazine. Jeffrey was 
embarrassed when he asked—“Is this Mr. Bertram 
Tucker?” and more than embarrassed when, at the 
question, the great figure sprang suddenly into life, 
and leaped forward with a jubilant roar of— 

“Welcome to Chicago, Jeff! My, but I am glad to 
meet you!” and he emphasized his gladness by a par¬ 
alyzing handclasp. It was like being met by a uni- 


214 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


formed band with loud trombones, and as the two 
walked up Dearborn Street, Tucker with his arm 
about Jeffrey’s shoulder, the young man was aware 
that he was not doomed to obscurity. 

Up the roaring canon of Dearborn Street they 
walked, Jeffrey scarcely able to hear a word that his 
companion uttered; burned one minute by the glare 
of the sun as it beat up from the pavements, frozen 
the next as they came to a cross street swept by the 
frigid breezes from off the lake. At Van Buren 
Street, to the clang of the surface cars and the rumble 
of wagons and vans, was added the more heaven- 
shattering noise of the elevated, punctuated by shrill 
blasts from a traffic whistle, so that Jeffrey came to 
be grateful for the strong arm that guided him safely 
through the maze. 

By the time they had reached Rogers Park he 
decided that Tucker was such an altogether lovable 
and genuine person that, despite his eccentric appear¬ 
ance, he was going to like him. Already he knew, in 
outline, the man’s curious history—Tucker never 
kept anything hid. He had been born in Missouri, 
had invented a type-setting machine of some sort, 
while working in his father’s printing office, and had 
made enough money to gratify a youthful ambition 
to travel. In South America he had been lucky 
enough to invest in a mining scheme that brought 
profits a thousand fold, so that at twenty-five he had 
returned, with a notion of reforming the land of his birth. 
To this end he had entered Argyle College, but had 
felt, after two years, that his time was being wasted, 
and had come to Chicago, where, for five years, he 
had been the head of the Flaming Futurists. He had 
spent over a hundred thousand on the venture, and, 
aside from what he termed the spiritual satisfactions, 
had made no returns. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


215 


The Flaming Future Center was just three blocks 
from the lake, and was housed in a four-storied brick 
flat with a grey stone front. Jutting bay windows 
stood out on each side, and between them, on the 
first floor, was the entrance. In the rear, occupying 
most of the space intended for a back yard, was a 
low shed-like building in which were the editorial 
rooms and the printing shop. 

Jeffrey was to share Bertram Tucker’s room on the 
top floor, and as they went along the dark corridors 
and up the stairs Tucker kept calling out warnings,— 
“Don’t stumble over that parrot cage,” and, “Watch 
out for that saucer! Ida will feed her cat in the hall.” 
The place was all a-clutter with pans and cups and 
vases and brooms; he even tripped over a type-writer 
that had been crowded into the hall, and, on the 
fourth floor, Tucker unwittingly brought down his 
two-hundred pounds upon a luckless puppy’s tail, 
and caused a great ado. Forth from her room, hair 
done up in papers, and clad in a faded blue kimono, 
came the owner. 

“Oh, Bert, what have you done to poor Max 
Stirner?” she cried seizing the frenzied puppy in her 
arms. “Did the bad man step on urns tail?—You must 
be more careful.” 

“I’m sorry ’Gusta, but Max Stirner ought to be 
more of a philosopher than to howl when his tail is 
mashed, and, besides, he should take better care of the 
‘ego and its own.’ I suppose the tail is part of the 
ego. But here, meet Jeffrey Collingsworth. This is 
Augusta Graham, author of the ‘Life Serene’ articles.” 
Collingsworth noticed that the bony hand she ex¬ 
tended was stained with ink—it looked like a fragment 
of old vellum manuscript. 

“Pleased to meet you, Jeffrey Collingsworth,” was 
her greeting. “I hope you’ll like it here at the Center, 


216 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


and if you are going to room on this floor please 
don’t step on Max.” 

“It is so dark that he couldn’t see the dog, Miss—” 

“Leave off the handle, please, we don’t use Mr., 
Miss, or Mrs., here at the Center; its a barbaric usage 
smacking of serfdom and snobbery. I’m just plain 
Augusta.” 

“That is very nice and informal,” Collingsworth 
conceded, “But as I was going to say, Tucker didn’t 
mean to step on the puppy.” 

“Oh, if you live here long enough you will find that 
Bert never means to hurt anything; he’s just blind, 
that’s all. When you get settled come in and have 
a chat,”—and she turned away, soothing the injured 
feelings of Max Stirner. 

The room Jeffrey was supposed to share was in a 
singular state of disarray, books and magazines, lib¬ 
erally sprinkled with dust, lay all about the floor and 
on the two folding cots, intermingled with used towels 
and brushes and stubs of discarded pencils. Two 
enormous iron dumb-bells lay on the cot that he was 
to occupy, while just above, on the wall, hung an 
elaborate chart, which Tucker described as the chart 
of interrelated universal principles, by the use of 
which instrument clear thinking was inevitable. 

“I’m a poor housekeeper,” Tucker apologized, see¬ 
ing Jeffrey’s hesitation. “I have to do everything here; 
most of the folks in our colony spend their time 
writing, and won’t turn a hand to anything else,— 
but it can’t be helped; its the result of the leisure 
class system. Put your things in this closet for the 
present till I clean out that bureau. Here’s the bath¬ 
room, and when you are ready we’ll go down to the 
kitchen. I expect you’re hungry.” 

The combined kitchen and dining room—if such 
a place could be called a dining room—of the Futurists 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


217 


was in the basement. As they entered there was a 
high stack of paper plates on a shelf near the door— 
there must have been more than a thousand—and in 
a rough box nearby was a miscellaneous assortment 
of tin spoons and somewhat blackened forks. Against 
the wall were barrels of fruit, bunches of over-ripe 
bananas, and great cases of dried prunes, raisins and 
nuts. In the center was a long, rough, uncovered table, 
and just beyond a vast stove such as one might see 
in a hotel. On this was an aluminum kettle with a 
capacity of apparently ten gallons. Tucker picked 
out from another case two paper napkins, and one of 
these, together with plate, spoon and fork he handed 
to Jeffrey. 

“You seem to have everything here in wholesale 
quantities; you could feed a small army,” Collings¬ 
worth remarked, amazed by the abundance. 

“We buy everything wholesale, and keep it here 
handy, so that the folks can eat when Nature demands. 
Having regular hours is a superstition far more evil 
in its effects than going to church, or living under 
capitalism, a fact which the socialists and freethinkers 
seem to overlook. Next to corset wearing it is the 
most wasteful and evil of abuses. People talk of 
being emancipated when they have merely found out 
that Jonah was not swallowed by the whale, or be¬ 
cause they have learned that the capitalist is stealing 
their wealth.—But here we are teaching by precept 
and example the complete emancipation in food, sex, 
religion, science, philosophy, clothes, medicine, hous¬ 
ing, morals, art and education, and the result is that 
all the so-called radicals have it in for us; for they all 
want to cling to some pet superstition, like wearing 
a hat or shoes, eating meat, drinking a glass of beer, 
or smoking a cigar. What we want is to become com¬ 
pletely rational in every detail of life. We live under 


218 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


a two per cent efficiency; we must learn to live at 
one hundred per cent. Now take the question of 
food. Here wo have worked out a perfectly scientific 
system of diet,—let me show you; just follow me with 
your plate.” 

They began to walk about the room, collecting from 
bin and basket, an Irish potato, two carrots, a stalk 
of celery, a turnip, a handful of dusty raisins and still 
dustier prunes, and, finally, a dozen or more English 
walnuts and an apple. 

“Now this is an almost perfect ration just as it is,” 
Tucker expounded, “carbo-hydrates, proteids, and a 
dash of mineral salts, but to make it richer and more 
palatable we have another mixture ready prepared 
and cooked,”—leading the way to the stove and re¬ 
moving the lid of the kettle,—“In here we put each 
morning, after all have had their breakfast porridge 
of cooked oats and barley, a combination of beans, 
peas, potatoes, spinach or whatever vegetables are in 
season, and boil them in plain water, adding only a 
little butter or a few drops of olive oil, and, as a con¬ 
cession to long established habits of taste, a tiny pinch 
of salt. So we get a combination of cooked and raw 
food with exactly the right proportion of proteids 
and fats to make for the highest mental and physical 
excellence.” 

Inside the kettle was a wooden ladle with which 
the food scientist proceeded to fill one of a number 
of small metal soup plates. 

“You will like this I am sure. It may seem a bit 
strange at first, but you will come to have a real 
appreciation of natural food after a time, and will 
find your health greatly improved. You need more 
muscle. How much do you weigh?” 

“Almost a hundred and fifty pounds,” Jeffrey re- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


219 


plied, wondering whether he could swallow this appal¬ 
ling mixture. 

“And you are about six feet tall?” 

“Six feet one.” 

“Then you should weigh a hundred and seventy-five 
pounds. See here—” rolling back his sleeve and ex¬ 
hibiting enormous biceps—“I’ve developed that and a 
proportionate muscularity all over my body by the 
use of this diet and proper exercise—natural exercise— 
and you must do the same.” 

“How am I to eat this potato and these carrots?” 
asked Jeffrey, who was, in his state of hunger, begin¬ 
ning to find that the cooked mixture was at least pos¬ 
sible, but who had not the courage to take the next 
step. 

“Just peel and eat them raw, as you would an apple; 
you get the real flavor and the entire value that way.” 

But Jeffrey declared, when he had finished the bowl 
of cooked vegetables, that he was quite satisfied, and 
that he would content himself with a few nuts and an 
apple for dessert. 

When they had done, the paper plates were thrown 
into a trash box, the bowl and spoon subjected to a 
momentary shower beneath the faucet, and the kitchen 
was declared in order. 

Then Tucker led him to the printing shop and 
office. On the way they crossed a small court where, 
the editor explained, the Futurists held occasional 
conferences with friends of the group and held con¬ 
tinence meetings. 

“What are continence meetings?” Collingsworth 
was prompted to ask. 

“Meetings to subdue sex curiosity and to teach us 
how to control our instincts; but we will come to 
that later. Here is our printing plant.” 

In this room was the first semblance of nicety that 


220 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Collingsworth had seen about the Center; the Hoe 
press was polished until it radiated the very spirit of 
light, and the type cases seemed to lend themselves 
to Tucker’s system of interrelation far better than 
the bedrooms had done. At a linotype machine in the 
corner sat a stout little man with black sleevelets and 
warty nose whom Tucker presently introduced as 
Ernest Avery, managing editor, linotypist and proof 
reader for the Flaming^ Future. Avery lived in a past 
in which he had known Eugene Field, and for a future 
in which, without interruption, he could talk single¬ 
tax. Fortunately he was subject to severe attacks of 
asthma during which, unable to speak, he would work 
furiously. A confirmed bachelor, he was now enthu¬ 
siastically setting up an article on The Psychic Factors 
in Pre-natal Influence. After whispering a few words 
of greeting without leaving his seat, he resumed his 
task at the machine. In the rear a very red-nosed old 
man was repairing a hand press. 

‘‘One of our printers,” Tucker explained. “We have 
no regular printers—can’t afford them—but when the 
magazine is ready I go down to the police courts and 
pay the fine of some travelling printer who has been 
up for ‘drunk and disorderly,’ and bring him out to 
work off his indebtedness. They are glad to get the 
good food and lodging, and are grateful for the ser¬ 
vice. While they are here I give them a bit of my 
philosophy, and they become travelling missionaries 
for Futurism. It’s a great system.” 

“Do they reform?” 

“I don’t know, none of them ever come back.” 

Jeffrey thought of the food and wondered. 

In the editorial rooms—two dusty and littered 
dens, separated by a glass door— stacked with ex¬ 
change magazines, innumerable books, pamphlets for 
review, manuscripts and paste pots, were, besides 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


221 


these, or in spite of them, and partly buried beneath 
them, roll-top desks and several battered typewriters. 
Before the most likely of these, in Tucker’s particular 
den, sat a woman of doubtful age, thoughtfully en¬ 
gaged in picking out the letters on the keyboard. Had 
one not seen her roll of bright red hair and the semi¬ 
feminine apparel one might have fancied this grim 
person an ex-welterweight boxer of some standing. 
There was a masterfulness about the set jaw, accentu¬ 
ated by a severe stiff collar, that suggested no foolish¬ 
ness. Lips tightly compressed and with hard wrinkles 
at the corners, two deep lines between the half closed 
grey-green eyes, and nostrils expanded like those of 
an excited stallion,—all gave evidence of a most deter¬ 
mined nature. 

“Ida Lamb,” Tucker introduced, “here’s Jeffrey Col¬ 
lingsworth, all ready and itching to begin work with 
us.” 

“Put it there, Collingsworth,” shouted Miss Lamb, 
rising to her feet and extending a muscular hand. 
Then, surveying him critically from head to foot as 
if half doubtful of his somewhat conventional attire, 
“How do you think you’ll like getting into the thick 
of our fight? It’s not fighting on paper up here, eh, 
Tucker?” 

As she rose Jeffrey saw her skirt was divided and 
that her shoes were flat-heeled, reminding him of the 
brogans worn by the mountain whites in Virginia. 

“I don’t know just the nature of the fight you mean. 
I had supposed that you had things pretty much your 
own way up here,” he replied, uncertainty in his tone, 
“but I suppose I will have to be tried like everyone.” 

“Ida is our feminist writer and used to be in the 
suffrage campaigns, until she began to get too liberal 
for the old war horses,” said Tucker, coming to the 


222 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


rescue. “Have you finished that article on The New 
Motherhood, Ida?” 

“Nope, I’m stuck on the conclusion, but I can tear it 
off tonight, I guess. Been trying my hand at a poem 
on the white slavery traffic.” 

“Lord have mercy!” groaned the editor, “you’ll be 
ruined yet, Ida. You’d better stick to prose.” 

“Do you know,” he said when they had gone out, “I 
have been forced to do most of the work at this place 
on account of the poetry fever. I have had scores of 
people come to work at typewriting, stenography, 
housekeeping, ad soliciting and what not, all claim¬ 
ing to be eager to get the chance to do something for 
the cause; but after they are here for a while all they 
want to do is write sonnets. I’ve had to pay the fare 
of some of these people to get them here, support 
them while they lived here, and then, when I have 
asked them to do something, they have been insulted 
and left. People have advised me to compel an invest¬ 
ment on the part of those who come to the Center to 
live, but that is not a part of my idea—it spoils it. I 
want to give of what chance has given to me, and 
something more. I’m not trying to make money, but 
to spread ideas.” 

“Why don’t you draw up contracts for your colon¬ 
ists?” Jeffrey inquired. 

“No, I’m afraid that would kill the spirit of the 
thing. It is discouraging sometimes, but it is better 
to have been kind to a hundred bums than to have 
hurt anyone. After all why should I blame anybody? 
People are what heredity and environment have made 
them, and heretofore both these forces have been un¬ 
regulated and blind; society has been stupid, and 
disease and law and jails and bums and criminals are 
the result. It is for us to teach, and not get angry or 
impatient. We get perfect returns in this world, and 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


223 


the police court is the interest society draws on its 
previous investments; war is another return. The 
Futurists aim to work out a great synthesis of the 
sciences whereby the returns shall be perfect human 
beings, and we must start here.” 

“But your money won’t hold out forever.” 

“True, I’ve only about fifty thousand left, and the 
magazine just pays for itself—and there’s taxes and 
food. . . . The outside voluntary contributions amount 
to about twenty dollars a month.” 

“Well, what do you want me to do?” demanded 
Jeffrey. “I don’t intend to be a parasite.” 

“After next month I want you to run the magazine 
while I go out and try to get help. I will devote some 
time to working out my system of synthesis, and that 
will make about four pages a month on the magazine; 
I will take care of the colony-food and supplies. The 
r<'«;t of the time I will be in the field, lecturing. You 
will find over a thousand manuscripts that ought to 
be looked after, and will get more every mail. Many 
of these should be revised before we print them,. 
What time you have left you can give to reviews and 
editorials.” 

“I’ll try it,” Jeffrey agreed, “but meanwhile, if you 
don’t mind, I’ll clean the place up a bit. I have a little 
money, and if I can hire someone to help I can 
straighten out some of the confusion.” 

“You mean the shop?” 

“I mean everything.” 

“God love you, you are the very one I want here. 
You are the first person, aside from myself, who has 
ever suggested cleaning up, and I’m too busy to try 
any more; but don’t offend any of the folks.” 

In some things Tucker had the sophistication of a 
trained business man; as an inventor and mechanic 
he was a near-genius, but as a judge of human nature 


224 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


he was as simple as an adolescent collie; as a thinker 
he was as incoherent as a line of modern verse; at 
heart he was a child, ingenuous, gullible, full of illu¬ 
sions. With all his physical strength he never resented 
an injury nor an insult. He never lusted after women 
—being no more able to think an impure thought than 
to express a logical one—, but because his language 
was bare of conventional restraint and his sense of 
fitness yet unborn, he bore the reputation of a modern 
Casanova. Mothers pointed him out to their little 
girls as the priapic incarnation of the Antichrist. And 
all the misunderstood women of the Middle West, as 
soon as they heard of him, came to offer their services 
as—secretaries. They asked for stones, and he gave 
them bread,—such as it was—and they went away, 
indignant at his abstraction, to join the multitude of 
those who despised him. Among the radical leaders of 
Chicago he was the least clear, the most unpopular, 
and one of the most sincere. 

Jeffrey felt that he could trust Tucker—he had no 
doubt concerning the fairness of the man; but the in¬ 
stitution—what a mess! He welcomed, however, the 
overwhelming nature of the task he had been set, and 
felt that, in spite of everything, there might be a some¬ 
thing big made out the magazine. He would, after the 
place was cleaned and fit for work, reject a lot of the 
nonsense—poetry and occult mishmash that had here¬ 
tofore been allowed,—whip things about into some 
sort of a logical and consistent policy, and try to wed 
style, or at least grammar, to iconoclasm. When 
Tucker was out of the way, he would be severe, and 
discontinue the publication of the silly personal letters 
of people who wrote: 

“At the age of fourteen, my father, who had always 
believed the Bible and gone to church, lost his corn 
crop in a hail storm; and that same summer a neigh- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


225 


boring deacon was caught stealing chickens. Since 
then I have known that there is no God.”.or: 

“The Flaming Future is Just Grand! All hail the 
Dawn!” 

He wanted to make a magazine that he would not 
be ashamed to send to his friends; to Rice, for instance, 
or—H. S. B. He wondered where she lived; would 
he ever see her again? She had said that she had 
studied at the University the year before. A cata¬ 
logue might tell,—still, that handbag might be her 
mother’s. He would get a catalogue—besides, he 
wanted to look about the University grounds anyway. 
It must be an interesting place. He recalled the soft, 
white flesh of her neck. That last glimpse at the sta¬ 
tion added to the desirability of taking a graduate 
course. And yet, he pondered, she was probably a 
fool, or at least an uncomfortable and disappointing 
person. That seemed to be the way the world had with 
him—it turned his dreams to sorry jests, making, 
where he expected an Emerson, a garbage man; where 
he hoped to find the Utopian Abbey of Theleme, a 
stable of puppies and parrots. And he was beginning, 
ever so slightly, to distrust his desires and to be afraid. 
Scepticism comes very tardily to those who profess 
doubt; and to those who need it most, a sense of 
humor is often withheld until after a season of bitter 
tears. 



XXVII 


O N the following Sunday morning there was an 
informal meeting of a number of Futurists in 
the court. Jeffrey had already encountered a few 
of them during the days of his house-cleaning, when, 
with Ivan Some-body-or-other, a friend of a neighbor¬ 
ing janitor, he had endeavored to clear the hall of im¬ 
pedimenta. There had been some lusty protests at first, 
but finally, when Jeffrey had made snug beds on the 
back balconies for the puppies and cats, and provided 
hangings for some bird-cages, peace had been restored, 
and even Augusta Graham had agreed that the place 
was more habitable. But now he was to know Lydia 
Moreton, an olive-skinned and be-spectacled little 
creature who wrote tirades against vaccination and 
talked of the solar plexus, Hatha Yogi, and spent 
hours in the practice of concentration by gazing at a 
piece of cardboard; Estelle Beaver, fat and fifty, who 
collected stray cats, arrested cruel drivers in the 
streets and was secretary to an anti-vivisection so¬ 
ciety; and Jacob Stein, a very hooked-nosed anarchist, 
who suffered from severe astigmatism and bad 
adenoids, and carried about a soiled copy of Bakunin. 
All in all, Tucker was the only healthy and thoroughly 
genial person in the group. 

The day being very warm, and the shelter of the 
surrounding buildings sufficient to protect them from 
the breeze off the lake, they lounged about in thin 
attire, having selected, apparently, the first thing that 
came to hand in getting out of bed. The outsiders 
who dropped in during the morning, were, to say the 
least, more completely clothed. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


227 


Some of the resident colonists were away, only using 
the rooms at the Center when there was nothing of 
interest or profit outside. Tucker’s was a convenient 
storage house for their things, and, besides, they 
needed, on occasion, the free board which They re¬ 
ceived in return for an ode, an essay or an approving 
smile. 

Tucker explained his coming campaign for more 
funds; the colony must be endowed with a million 
dollars. 

The statement was greeted with heartfelt applause, 
and everyone began with enthusiasm to explain just 
how to spend the money.“Wouldn’t it be glori¬ 

ous !”.... “a large sun-parlor and lecture hall where 

we could all give lectures”.“Oh! and I could 

give my course on Our Dumb Animals, it’s so unsatis¬ 
factory in this court; there’s no room for an audience, 

and the theatres down-town are too expensive.”. 

“And we could build nice kennels.” 

Then, inevitably, they got around to sex. Tucker 
didn’t care much for sex talk, save when some measure 
was being proposed to sublimate the force to higher 
ends, or when his hobby of continence through famili¬ 
arity was being aired, but he tolerated everything. He 
even tolerated Jeffrey’s pipe.— 

“You can poison yourself if you wish, eat meat, 
drink coffee, tea, whiskey, smoke, do as you will; 
they are not provided in our cellars, but if you must 
have them, go ahead. I hate to see a half-rationalist 
kill himself, that’s all.” 

The sex conference was, for all the enthusiasm of 
the talkers, a highly theoretical and very un-animal 
affair. These people spoke of sex as though it were 
something out of a book. They had, Jeffrey felt, no 
capacity for anything else. They were curious about 
it, passionately fond of talking about it in the baldest 






228 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


fashion, but not, with one or two exceptions, anxious 
to experience it. 

Jacob Stein announced that Maria Encolpitis, the 
great champion of free love, would speak that evening 
at Masonic Temple, and invited everyone who wished 
to hear her to accompany him. 

“The same old stuff; we know that crowd; nothing 
new,” they agreed. But Jeffrey, while he did not wish 
to accompany Stein, wanted to hear the widely 
heralded orator of the free love movement. She had 
been quoted by Aaron Philo, and probably, being a 
leader, had an interesting personality. Not knowing 
how to get about the city alone he accepted the invi¬ 
tation. 

They got off the elevated at Randolph Street, and on 
the way over to the Temple passed the lighted windows 
of a cafe. The sight of real food made Jeffrey hungry, 
and he decided, with a guilty feeling of disloyalty, that 
he would sometimes sneak away and enjoy a more 
palatable meal than Futurism afforded. 

Up, up, up, past the tenth and the fifteenth floors 
to the very top went the elevator. What a world this 
modern man, the mechanical ant, has created for him¬ 
self !—thought Jeffrey, made dizzy by the unaccus¬ 
tomed levitation. 

The hall was packed and they were compelled to 
take seats in the very back row of chairs. Foreigners 
all about him, Russian Jews, German Jews, Poles, 
Italians, Greeks, Mexicans, Hungarians, there was 
scarcely a face of the type he was used to see. The 
air was stifling, and saturated with the odors of sweat 
and of soiled feet. Surely there is something evil 
about the toil of cities, he thought, in that the sweat 
of men who work therein is vile and acrid, whereas the 
sweat of those who glean the fields is sweet. He had 
heretofore reckoned the sweat of men a pleasant thing, 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


229 


.and Nell.Ugh! Walt Whitman had 

never been present at such a gathering as this, or he 
had not written a line like that in Leaves of Grass. 

A queer, bald-headed little man introduced the 
speaker, and announced the sale of books on sex. He 
had a voice not unlike that of a news vender on the 
local trains. Maria Encolpitis, he boasted, had served 
three terms in jail for her loyalty to the cause. The 
applause that followed was mingled with hisses and 
cries of '‘shame.” He took peculiar pleasure (Jeffrey 
wondered why these introductions invariably gave 
rise to peculiar pleasure) in presenting Maria Encol¬ 
pitis, lately of Philadelphia, but now of this world. 
“Her subject this evening is: A Woman’s Right to 
Choose the Father of her Child.” 

Maria was a rotund Amazon with yellow hair and 
thick lips. Her sleeves were short and she had a way 
of holding her chubby right hand so as to reveal a 
glittering bracelet encircling the wrist. It seemed a 
miniature log chain. After relating some of her bitter 
experiences, she began to describe the slavery of con¬ 
ventional matrimony and the incivilities of the mar¬ 
riage bed. She regarded the asking of sex favors as 
no more improper than a request to pass the biscuits. 
Men had looked upon this initiative as their preor¬ 
dained privilege, but it was no more their right than 
that of women. In fact the woman should decide and 
take the first step, since hers was the responsibility. 
A great Chicagoan had likened marriage to a restau¬ 
rant,—the other man’s order always looked better than 
one’s own. Therefore there should be no marriage. 
Followed then some stories illustrative of the superior 
passion-hunger of women. The audience, chiefly made 
up of young people, leaned forward with eyes aglow 
and mouths open. One or two old men moistened 




230 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


their lips in half regretful reminiscence. Here and 
there some one would giggle. 

Jeffrey was disgusted,—with both audience and 
speaker. There was some logic in what had been said, 
but it was without scientific background or philo¬ 
sophic outlook. Most of all it was ugly—sordid. And 
the people w r ere like goats. No, goats were natural, 
and required no lecture for their license. He suspected 
that the basis for this particular manifestation of re¬ 
volt arose from temperament, desire, not thought. If 
he were to retain his respect for the idea he must get 
away from these filthy exponents. He whispered to 
Stein that he was ill,—it was too close; he must get 
out. Stein merely nodded, being drunk with ecstacy 
at the fount of understanding. Jeffrey quietly, but 
quickly left the room. 

The cold air outside was good to breathe, and he 
faced the strong east wind, grateful for its tonic power. 
The people in the streets were full of gaiety and 
seemed, every one, to be rushing toward some goal 
of delight. The contagion of haste caught him up and 
he went along, heedless of direction, toward the lake; 
then, turning south, found himself presently before 
the Art Institute, whose couchant lions looked out 
impassively over the multitude. Electric signboards 
flashed their defiant messages of rubber tires and eye- 
;tonic back and forth over that temple of culture, in 
colors of red and green, while on the broad (black 
avenue a procession of motor cars seemed to be whis¬ 
pering files of twin meteors. The lights, the air, the 
comparative cleanliness of the boulevard drove out the 
feeling of disgust, and conscious once more of hunger, 
he retraced his steps and entered the cafe that he had 
seen earlier in the evening. 

“No,” commented Tucker on the day following, 
after Jeffrey had told of his experience, “I don’t blame 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


231 


you for leaving. Those people have no balance; they 
can’t look at things objectively, dispassionately. They 
injure the cause they profess. But they are genuine; 
they are not hypocrites such as you will find among 
more respectable companies; and that ought to count 
for something.” 

“I am beginning to think that sincerity is not every¬ 
thing,” said Jeffrey—“Cleanliness and taste make up 
a big nine-tenths of morality.” 

“Don’t drag in morality unless you are prepared to 
say what is and what is not moral. Morality is, as 
somebody has said, a matter of the time, the place and 
the girl. You have to consider the climate, the race 
mixtures, the heredity, the economic and social envi¬ 
ronments and the particular psychology and circum¬ 
stances of every separate case. And since you have men¬ 
tioned it, the word morality has only one popular sig¬ 
nificance here in America, and that is sex ethics. No 
one thinks of laziness or indifference or hate or graft as 
immoral. If I should call the President of a corporation 
immoral I w r ould be arrested for libel, and requested to 
fetch the woman in the case. And—don’t interrupt me— 
these poor devils you despise are not half as dirty in 
their minds as a lot of preachers. I know, of a cer¬ 
tainty, no less than twenty preachers of various 
respectable pulpits in this city, who take their mis¬ 
tresses to houses of assignation, and then condemn us 
radicals for talking of sex. I don’t blame them for 
what they do, but what they say.” 

“Neither do I blame the Encolpitis disciples,” 
answered Jeffrey “but I think they might talk a little 
more decently. They need some education and a bath. 
And as for the preachers, I think a girl would do them 
good.” 

“Hey there, you damned pup!” shouted Avery from 
the press room, and the next minute, accompanied by 




232 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the ki-yis of a soundly kicked puppy, he rushed into 
Tucker’s office holding out a badly mangled manu¬ 
script— 

“Look what ‘Gusta’s damned Max Stirner has done; 
he’s nearly eaten up that article on ‘The Higher Steril¬ 
ization !” 


XXVIII 


T HE summer passed rapidly and brought a 
multitude of experiences. The work of sorting 
and! revising manuscripts, answering indignant 
protests from rejected authors, writing paragraphs 
to fill an empty space here and there, reviewing 
books, and securing tramp printers kept Collings¬ 
worth reasonably busy. But he found time to 
get acquainted with some of the city’s show places, 
Lincoln Park, the Art Institute, the Newberry 
Library and Field Museum. This last was to him a 
wonderland,—first because therein he saw the fossil 
evidences of an exfoliating world; hints that had been 
left behind by passing Life to induce her lovers to 
seek out her primitive hiding places, or, perchance, 
to lure them back into her ancient and baffling haunts, 
while she, the mocking jade, having discarded her 
outworn garments, marched on ahead. But he came, 
more and more, to enjoy, rather, those remnants of 
past civilizations from Alexandria, and Pompeii, and 
Athens, and from the banks of the sacred rivers of 
India. He had read of them in books, but to see 
them-—things of delicate beauty and pervasive charm, 
implements of the chase, hand wrought silver and 
gold, bronze and ivory, done for the fancy of a queen 
or the idle moments of an emperor—gave him a curi¬ 
ous sense of the futility of striving after .progress. 
Even the utilities were as well attended to in the 
civilizations before Christ as in our own day—yes, 
the sanitation, the sewage systems that we boast of 
now, must humble themselves to Cnossus in ancient 
Crete. These things gave him a feeling of uncertainty; 


234 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


for the religion of the emancipated is Humanity and 
their God is Progress. What if it should turn out that 
there is no progress? All in all he found the museum 
a place well fitted to beget scepticism, and he sought 
solace, after these visits, at the concerts in Ravinia 
Park among the woods of the North Shore, where 
were gathered people never fretted by doubt. 

The red card suggested another venture. The 
Argyle Socialists had told him to be sure to visit the 
National Headquarters:—“There are some grand 
men there, Comrade,” Thomas had said, and Jeffrey 
hoped that there were. This pilgrimage took him 
just west of the Loop into a shabby section of the 
down town neighborhood where the odors of impris¬ 
oned poultry and perishable fruits from Water Street 
were borne along by a vagrant breeze. “Same old 
thing,” he said to himself as he mounted the well worn 
steps. 

“What you want then, Comrade Collingsworth,” 
repeated the tall official of the party,—a man who 
might have been a retired Sunday School superin¬ 
tendent—“is to get in touch with an active Local. Let 
me see, I believe the Wells Street Local would be 
best; wouldn’t it, Lobenitz?”—this to a young man 
who was addressing envelopes nearby. 

“It’s more alive than Local Rogers Park,” was the 
reply. 

“It’s a little far,” continued the official who had 
introduced himself as John Armitage, “but if you want 
action it’s the likeliest place on the north side to get it.” 
He wrote an address on a slip of paper. “Go to the 
corner of Wells and Chicago Avenue and you will 
find Fred Kupmeyer. Tell him I sent you.” Then, 
after some questions relating to the activities at 
Argyle—“What are you doing here in Chicago?” 

As Jeffrey explained his relation to the Flaming 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


235 


Future, the smile on Armitage’s face turned to a 
frown. He looked doubtfully at the newcomer. 

“I don’t know that we want any more of Tucker’s 
breed in the party,” was his uncivil comment. 

“What’s wrong with Tucker?” Jeffrey demanded. 
“He is a good sort; a bit Utopian, and given to fads 
that I don’t find to my taste, but he is sincere and 
kind, and tolerant. He isn’t a good Marxian, but I 
find a number of socialists who are heterodox on that 
point.” 

“More’s the pity,” answered the other, “but Tucker 
poses as a leader, and runs a magazine for freaks; 
that’s bad for the movement. Then he has the colony 
idea; he is a nuisance, and has been put out of the 
party. I’m sorry you are mixed up with him, that’s 
all”—and, with a deprecatory wave of his hand, he 
turned back to the desk. 

“Shall I, or shall I not?” Jeffrey asked himself as 
he walked up the street. What the man had said 
was true enough,—there were too many insane ’isms 
around the center; but what of tolerance, liberality? 
Did everything resolve itself into an orthodoxy? But 
it wouldn’t do to go back now; he had pitched his 
tent in the radical camp at high cost to himself and 
to the grief of those who were dear to him. He must 
do something to make it worth while. Perhaps he 
could broaden the movement. If Tucker would let 
him run the magazine without interference he would 
confine it to a sane rationalism and a scientific social¬ 
ism, with an occasional article on free marriage. But 
it was Tucker’s magazine; what could he do? 

Kupmeyer was welding something or other in the 
back of his shop. A brisk little man somewhere in the 
thirties, the tinner, unlike many of his comrades, never 
permitted propaganda to interfere with his work. 
Nevertheless he received Collingsworth cordially, and, 


236 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


on learning his errand, left off the welding long enough 
to dust a chair and offer him a seat. 

Jeffrey told him of his relation to the Argyle Local, 
his reading, the reception at headquarters, and of how 
the mention of Tucker had given rise to disapproval. 
He thought it best to be frank at the outset. 

“Your party standing depends on you, not Tucker,” 
said Kupmeyer, smiling. “I have no use for 1 ucker’s 
policies, but Tucker himself is a good man. He’s 
cloudy up here”—tapping his forehead significantly— 
“but if you stand by Marx and Dietzgen and Lester 
Ward you are all sound. Here Joe,” he called to an 
assistant in an adjoining room, “you look after the 
shop for a minute.” Then to Jeffrey, “Come with me 
and I’ll change your card for you.” 

His little room, overhead, was lined with books, 
the cases reaching to the ceiling; there was scant room 
for the narrow bed and two chairs. Every notable 
scientific work published since the eighteen-fifties 
seemed to have been seized upon by this indefatigable 
little man, and tucked away in his den—Weismann, 
De Vries, Hering, Haeckel, Loeb, books in German 
and French, as well as English. This was a working¬ 
man of a new school, thought Jeffrey, pleased to see 
this evidence of the tinner’s learning. And he was 
even more pleased by the obvious neatness of the room. 

“Come see me some evening when I am not busy,” 
invited Kupmeyer, when he had entered the name 
and filled out the red card with stamps, “and I shall 
hope to see you Sunday at Moose Hall 

Reassured by finding a socialist whose library was 
inhospitable to trash, and who, judging by the twinkle 
in his eyes, had enough humor to save him from fana¬ 
ticism. Jeffrey began to be reconciled to the inevitable 
incongruities of the radical movement. He accepted 
the tinner’s invitation more than once, and was sur- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


237 


prised each time to find the man a!! t Ti at he had 
expected; affable, kindly, well-read, balanced and 
clean. Through him he got his first acquaintance with 
the book shops, and through him he met another 
agreeable socialist, Julian Wallace, an attorney whose 
office was more often the center of philosophic dis¬ 
cussion than a source of legal advice. Wallace had 
an independent income, was a collector of strange 
books, strange friends, and loved nothing better than 
to provoke others to an argument. It was Wallace 
who introduced Jeffrey to the frenzied well in Wash¬ 
ington Park. 

The well had originally been famous for waters that 
were reputed to be healing, but latterly it came to be 
suspected that they contained a specific irritant con¬ 
ducive to disputation. Certain it was that no sooner 
had a man swallowed a cupful of this potent liquid 
than he became possessed of an irresistible desire to 
debate. The subject was immaterial until its discus¬ 
sion was well under way. There were some excep¬ 
tions to this eclecticism: an old rabbi, banished from 
Russia, was always there waiting for an opportunity 
to argue about the prophecies; the driver of a laundry 
wagon came there on Sundays to discuss Mendelism; 
a Koreshan came to demonstrate that the earth is a 
hollow ball; and there were any number of socialists, 
single-taxers, faith-healers, and freethinkers who spe¬ 
cialized in their own particular hobby. The less con¬ 
vincing and luke-warm speakers were content with 
one or two opponents, and stood apart, or were seated 
vis-a-vis on the park benches; but the more volcanic 
orators gathered large groups from which would burst 
violent interruptions. Sometimes there would be a 
dozen or more of these open air preachers standing 
on as many benches, their voices rising in contention 


238 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


in the effort to shout down their rivals. Those vocally 
fittest survived. 

Overhead, from the tree-tops, the muted birds 
dropped down, upon the unprotected heads of these 
turbulent logicians, their testimonies of contempt. 

On the day of his first visit—a bright Sunday after¬ 
noon—an aged minister was prophecying the end of 
the world:— 

“Automobiles, electric cars, high explosives, sky¬ 
scrapers—all contrary to the order of nature; joy 
rides, midnight suppers, cabarets—all contrary to 
God’s holy laws; these things cannot last. The de¬ 
struction of Sodom will be yours, O people of 
Chicago.” 

“Go after him, Collingsworth; call him down,” 
urged Wallace, anxious to try the abilities of his new 
friend. 

“Too easy, too silly, and therefore too hard,” replied 
the intended victim, “Let’s hear them all.” 

They passed a group gathered around an energetic 
Catholic-Protestant controversy, and came to a stop 
on the outskirts of what was by far the principal at¬ 
traction of the afternoon. A young clergyman who, 
seriously alarmed by the sceptical tendencies of this 
open forum, had taken it upon himself, with consci¬ 
entious missionary zeal, to make regular visits to the 
well, was defending the historicity of Jesus . 

“.Aside from the incontrovertible testimony 

of the ancient manuscripts of the Bible, who doubts 
the words of Josephus, a disinterested outsider, and 
an unbeliever?” he questioned. 

Wallace nudged Jeffrey with a provoking thumb. 
Thus goaded, he felt that it was time for him to make 
an effort. 

“I do,” he challenged, “That passage in Josephus 
is a well-known forgery, and in proof of it I cite you 
to Bury’s edition of Gibbon’s Rome.” 





CABLES OF COBWEB 


239 


“Gibbon was an infidel, and his testimony is pre¬ 
judiced.” 

“Furthermore,” continued Jeffrey, beginning to feel 
his mettle—“you reject the historical basis of the 
cults of Attis, Dionysos, Osiris and Herakles. You 
declare that they had no one founder. Yet they made 
a distinct and forcible impression upon the minds of 
thousands in the ancient days. You reject the his¬ 
toricity of Krishna who had an embarrassingly similar 
career to that of Jesus, and was worshipped by millions. 
You say those cults had their origin, with all their 
potent influences, in myth and ritual drama. Why, 
then, aren’t you willing to admit the same of the cult 
of Christ? His whole history, from the star of Beth¬ 
lehem to the resurrection, is parallelled by a dozen 
heroes and gods of mythology who had devoted fol¬ 
lowers. Why was it that when the priestly scholars, 
who followed Cortez into Mexico, took back manu¬ 
script accounts of Quetzalcoatl—another saviour with 
a similar birth, career, death and resurrection—why 
was it that the manuscripts were burned? I tell you 
it was because the inquisitors knew that there was no 
chance to say of the ancient Americans that they had 
borrowed their ideas from Christianity.” 

But the young clergyman, already tired, and mani¬ 
festly unacquainted with the critical data furnished 
by the science of comparative religion, had left the 
field to Jeffrey. “I’ll read up on that stuff and get 
him later,” he whispered to some of his followers, as 
he departed. 

Collingsworth spoke for an hour, and at the con¬ 
clusion received a kind of ovation. Those who had 
not been able to understand his allusions to history 
or mythology were even more convinced that those 
who had. They all agreed that he was an excellent 
speaker. 




240 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“You ought to get a theater down-town, and give 
a course of lectures,” said Wallace enthusiastically. 
“There are a dozen theatres in the Loop where lec¬ 
tures are given every Sunday, and there’s always room 
for one more. Chicago is just the place for you. No 
don’t go; let’s wait and start another argument.” 

“I think I will leave you to start one yourself,” said 
Jeffrey, who was a little conscience-stricken at hav¬ 
ing lent himself to the interruption of the minister’s 
address, and now keen to be off on a mission nearer 
to his heart. “I have a friend at the University I am 
anxious to see, and I must get away. Thanks for 
bringing me here.” 

A fortnight before he had made his first visit to 
the University to obtain a catalogue. He had turned 
at once to the names beginning ith “S,” but on look¬ 
ing for the combination he sought, found, to his baffle¬ 
ment, that there were no less than three young women 
registered for the previous year, whose initials were 
H. B. S.: Hannah Bascomb Simpson, Helen Buell 
Sherwood and Hazel Beeman Smith. Self-conscious, 
and fearful of the prim looking woman who stood 
guard at the Information Desk, he had taken the book 
out to the marble seat in front of the door. “Simp¬ 
son, Sherwood, or Smith; I hope to God it isn’t 
Smith!” he muttered fervently. But how was he to 
find out? He didn’t dare approach the secretary with 
the story that he had seen a pretty girl on the train, 
had read the initials on her handbag; and then ask 
this grim woman if he might please have the addresses 
of the three H. B. S’s. No, that would be too silly. 
He would take a chance that the young woman was 

Hannah Bascamb Simpson, of-where was it?- 

Evansville, Indiana. 

“No,” responded the severe custodian, after looking 




CABLES OF COBWEB 


241 


for a moment at a huge card index, “Miss Simpson is 
not here. She did not enroll for the summer quarter, 
nor has she registered for the autumn.” And Jeffrey 
had not the courage to ask more. 

This day he nursed the feeble hope that he might 
meet the young woman if he but walked about the 
campus. Perhaps she wasn’t Miss Simpson after all; 
and, Smith or Sherwood, she might be walking out 
also. And what if he did see her? She would, in all 
probability, not so much as look at him; she appeared 
to be that sort. He was a fool to be prowling around 
hunting for a woman with whom he had, by chance, 
exchanged a few words on a train. She had forgotten 
him. But the memory of a luminous glow in her dark 
brown eyes, and of the lustre of her hair, and of a 
smile that danced about her lips—the memory of 
these foolish things was disconcerting to common 
sense; and, unregardful of the canons laid down in 
the Critique of Pure Reason, he walked on, and there 
was a certain wistfulness in his eyes. But he was 
not destined that day, nor for many another, to see the 
Hannah, or Hazel, or Helen of his dreams. 

Walking down the Midway to the Illinois Central 
Station, he began, despite the momentary depression 
arising from his sense of failure, to build such castles 
in the air as are common to a youth under the mad¬ 
ness of the moon. Suppose he should come to be 
editor-in-chief of the magazine, and there should issue 
in profit enough for the maintenance of a cottage, or 
a snug little flat for two? He could picture the win¬ 
dowed outlook over the lake.and the woman 

by his side, as they watched the light of the stars 
making merry on the waters beneath. They would 
write together, work together, plan together, share 
together all the beauty of the world. She must be an 
intelligent person, for the journal she had taken from 


242 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


her lap wore a cover very like that of the American 
Journal of Sociology. Marriage? No, he would con¬ 
vince her that marriage was an outworn relic of a 
savage age, and together, by the example of a gra¬ 
cious and beautiful one-ness, they would teach the 
world that love may be an hallowed thing unblessed 
by the hands of a priest, and holy without any gestures 
of genuflexion to the law. And this he held, notwith¬ 
standing the ugliness that he had seen manifested by 
those maimed and twisted misconceivers of truth at 
the Masonic Temple,—mere tramplers of pearls they 
were, seeking they knew not what. He must not let 
any experience of this sort blur his vision of free- 
marriage. But he would compromise to this extent; 
they would send out announcement cards:—“Mr. 

Jeffrey Collingsworth and Miss-announce their 

marriage on-” If the girl’s name were Hannah 

Simpson, his mother would approve of the Hannah as 
signifying modesty and (reserve; if it were Hazel 
Smith, his father would be sure to think that he had 
married a Methodist or a Socialist! 

He had received a letter from his father a few days 
before, and the tone of it, while not bitter, was such 
as to indicate a brooding sadness. Mr. Collingsworth 
wrote that he had, in the endeavor to understand his 
son, attended a meeting at the Oldbern Methodist 
Church— 

“.a very depressing task, sir, I assure you; 

but I am possessed to understand why you allow your¬ 
self to associate with the socialists. Not that I think 
for a moment that the followers of John Wesley—who 
was, in his way, a gentleman—are as pernicious as the 
socialists, but because they are of the same social 
level, have I permitted myself to mingle with them. 
I am even more astonished than before that a Collings¬ 
worth should find happiness in the midst of such 





CABLES OF COBWEB 


243 


vulgarity. . . . But I will chide with you no more, 
hoping for a day when your eyes shall have been 

opened.Take good care of your health. 

if you are in want, let me know. In case you should 
ever be in need, I enclose a blank check; not for use 
on your magazine nor for any heathen cause, you 
understand,—” 

He had burned the check, fearing that he might be 
tempted to its use. He was too proud for that. 

Yes, his father was almost right, although he hated 
to admit it—Methodists and Socialists! What was 
there in common between them? They were both 
democratic; both demonstrative; both given to per¬ 
spiration. He did hope that the girl’s name was not 
Hazel Smith. 


( 




XXVIII 


pHE September issue of the Flaming Future had 
been delayed. Printers seemed to have been in- 
“ ia “ considerately sober during August; and there had 
been none for whom Jeffrey might offer bail. At last he 
had found one in a lodging house on Clark Street, not 
drunk, to be sure, but in such desperate straits that he 
had been glad to work for a pittance,—glad even for 
the scientific food. And now the magazine was in 
the press. Tucker was still working for an endow¬ 
ment fund and was somewhere in Iowa, so Jeffrey had 
a free hand. This was going to be an excellent num¬ 
ber; he was quite proud of it. Kupmeyer had fur¬ 
nished an essay on Dietzgen and the Intellectuals; 
Wallace had discovered a young Englishman, fresh 
from London and the Bernard Shaw circle of Fabians, 
who had an interesting article on Samuel Butler 
(Jeffrey had never heard of Butler, and Wallace’s 
assurance that nothing concerning The Way of All 
Flesh and Erewhon had been published in America, 
made him feel especially important) ; then the English¬ 
man presented a friend who was willing to contribute 
something on Friedrich Nietzsche—the Aristocratic 
Iconoclasm of Nietzsche, it was called; there was a 
poem by a conservative Chicagoan who had evidently 
read Keats to some purpose; an article by Hughley 
on the New Revolution in Pedagogy, the same being 
a revision of his college thesis; his own editorial on 
the Benevolent Scepticism of Montaigne; and Tucker’s 
serial on Clear Thinking. Concerning this last, there 
had been some controversy. Jeffrey had written to 
Tucker that he wanted to change some of his awkard 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


245 


sentences, and to modify the balder statements. It 
was impertinent thus to take liberties with the real 
editor and owner, but Tucker, with characteristic 
tolerance, yielded in all good nature. Unfortunately 
he had sent, along with his last letter, some epigrams 
thought by him to be particularly clever. To Jeffrey 
they seemed not offensive, but stupid; and one of 
these he suspected of being an unconscious plagiarism. 
Tucker was obdurate. They must be printed, all 
of them. They could be placed here and there, he 
insisted, as fillers; and he wanted them framed! There 
was nothing for it but to print them, but Jeffrey, re¬ 
calling the profane juxtaposition that had been given 
to his Demeter paragraph, took some revengeful satis¬ 
faction in having the especially questionable text— 
“Monogamy is a Monologue in A flat”—run next 
to an advertisement for a powerful laxative. 

After the essay on Samuel Butler, his chief triumph 
was the cover. Rumaging about in the office he had 
found a large quantity of heavy grey paper, left over 
from other days, and this he proposed to use to re¬ 
place the wrapper of bright green. The torch was to 
be stamped in more decorous if less decorative black. 
The result was an inoffensive and highly respectable 
jacket, worthy of comparison with that of the older 
and more sedate periodicals. Of such a magazine he 
could be proud, and he planned to send copies to any 
number of his more conventional friends. He hoped 
that, later, he might be able to exhibit a copy to the 
girl of the train. 

Then Tucker returned, every furrow on his brow 
telling of his failure. Only five hundred dollars to¬ 
wards the hypothetical million had been raised, and 
that had been given by a young and enthusiastic Iowa 
poet who expected to join the colony and get his liv¬ 
ing from the investment. The editor chuckled over 


246 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the changes that had been introduced during his ab¬ 
sence. 

“Lord, but we’re getting respectable!” he exclaimed, 
as he looked over the copy. “When this goes out, 
they will be comparing us to the Atlantic Monthly. 
Our folks won’t reognize us in this grey jacket; and 
the stuff is too heavy, too formal for plain people. 
Still,” he continued, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “one 
such number will do us no lasting damage; but as I 
have reminded you before, we must not get to be a 
sample of rationalism in evening dress.” Then, de¬ 
tecting the disappointment in his assistant’s eyes, he 
added—“It’s a nice piece of work, and I am proud of 
you. . . The place is more livable now that it isn’t 
cluttered up with trash. . . But, tell me, why is this 
issue so late?” 

Collingsworth explained the difficulties he had en¬ 
countered in finding printers. 

“You still need the old man around,” Tucker replied 
with a laugh, “I’d have had fifty printers in that time; 
I know where to look for them.” Tucker enjoyed the 
irony of his method of securing labor; he thought it a 
beautiful joke that an anti-alcoholic journal should 
employ the victims of inebriety. “We profit by the 
sins of the system we destroy; they make fertilizer 
for our fields,” he would boast. 

“See here, Tucker,” said Jeffrey, who had heard, 
among other disturbing rumors, sharp criticism of this 
practice,—“The socialists have put a ban on us be¬ 
cause we don’t employ union labor; don’t you 
think—?” 

“I don’t care what they do, we are bigger than a 
mere party, and, moreover, we are living under a 
system from which we are entitled to get such paltry 
profits as we can; cheap printing is one of the bene¬ 
fits. We are not millionaires.” 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


247 


“Perhaps you are right about that; the socialists 

are a bit narrow.” 

“Narrow as your southern Hardshell Baptists,” in¬ 
terrupted the editor with more feeling than usual. 

“.But,” Jeffrey continued, determined to make 

a clean breast of the accumulated criticisms of the 
summer, “there are some other charges brought against 
the Center which, I believe, are deserving of more 
serious consideration. First there is the matter of 
costume; excuse my frankness, but I feel that that is 
one of the chief reasons why you can’t secure funds— 
the peculiarity of your dress. Sandals alone, or hat- 
lessness of itself, might go unnoticed; but to be differ¬ 
ent all around drives people away. The ideas would 
receive a more generous hearing if the clothes didn’t 
startle. Don’t you think that if you ... if we . . . com¬ 
promised a little on the non-essentials, we would get 
on to better advantage?” 

“Do you think I dress as I do to gain notoriety?” 
Tucker demanded. “No, you don’t? Very well then, 
why? Because it is natural and sane. I wear clothes 
outside because it is cold, and I need them. Nature 
compels us to protect ourselves. In the summer I 
wouldn’t wear them, inside or out, if it weren’t for our 
silly laws. But the hat is not required by human law, 
and natural law is all against it. The race is getting 
bald through the wearing of hats; and what is uglier 
than a bald head ? Then shoes:—they make corns, 
bunions, blisters, and God knows what else. The feet 
need air. My costume is natural, and is adopted for 
moral reasons. Why do you always carry a cane?” he 
cried, pointing an accusing finger at the slender walk¬ 
ing stick in the corner. 

“My father and grandfather.” 

“Exactly, because others do it, and because it is a 
family tradition. For similar reasons you wear a high 





248 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


collar, and garb yourself in black on Sundays. Yet 
you would be the first to laugh at a man who gave 
such a reason for being an Episcopalian or a Republi¬ 
can. Moreover, a cane is a peculiar adornment here 
in the West, save in the case of old men and the lame. 
You are neither, and yet you persist in carrying the 
thing. I don’t care, you understand, but I charge you 
and all conventional people who do useless things, 
with a lack of moral earnestness. And as for shoes 
and hats and corsets, they should be prohibited as 
enemies of the race. 

“Many women are ugly without corsets.” 

“Health is a moral and social obligation, beauty is 
accidental. And I should count myself a coward to 
yield one whit to this conventional poppy-cock. It 
is a matter of the gravest principle with me,” he 
finished, looking sorrowfully at his tradition-bound 
assistant. 

“In some things,” confessed that young man, “I 
fear that I am beginning to lean toward amiability 
and appearances. I have given up many things for 
moral and social reasons, but it seems to me that to 
do everything for a moral reason is a little absurd. I 
hold reason in great reverence .... greater, I begin 
to suspect, than it deserves, . . . . , but I think that 
if I had been conscious of a moral motive back of my 
successive revolts, I should have abandoned them, and 
settled down in Virginia. Dominant moral motives 
make disagreeable men.” 

“Am I so disagreeable, then?” asked Tucker, a 
little wistfully. 

“No, old man, you’re not disagreeable. You are the 
most tolerant and thoroughly lovable person in the 
whole movement; but if you had the power, if you 
became a success, you would make the Spanish Inqui¬ 
sition seem like a flower festival. I, for one, should 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


249 


be afraid. And now,” he added, taking up the offend¬ 
ing cane, “I am going to take this emblem of respecta¬ 
bility, and march down to the lakeside where the care¬ 
less waters are playing aimlessly on the lazy sand— 
just to be inconsistent.” 

Having been absent from the fellowship for the 
better part of the summer, Bertram Tucker hastened 
to arrange for a gathering, not merely of the resident 
members of the colony, but of the sympathizers from 
all over the city. Invitations by card and telephone 
were sent out at once. There was to be a continence 
meeting held in the court on the following Sunday. 
As he had already explained to Collingsworth, the 
object of these little conventions was sex-control. 
Men and women met together in pnris natnralibus, 
and the familiar association thus achieved allayed 
mischievous curiosity, quieted the throbbings of desire, 
and rendered improbable that unholy hunger for for¬ 
bidden fruit, which, we are told, had its origin in Eden. 
The themes chosen for discussion at these times were 
chiefly those that are suggested in the dialogues of 
Plato. Sex was never mentioned,—indeed these were 
the only occasions when the high talk of sex problems 
was omitted by the Flaming Futurists. The new¬ 
comers, Tucker said, were apt to manifest quite visibly 
those signs of unemanicpation which betokened that 
they were yet mastered by the ancient trinity of evil; 
but, after they had attended a number of these meet¬ 
ings they behaved with the becoming docility of shorn 
lambs. 

Collingsworth had shown no keenness to enter this 
association of ethicjsts since he had looked—with 
some disfavor—upon the faces and forms of the earlier 
participants. He had great sympathy for the motives 
of these people. They hated prostitution as he did; 
they believed that sex expression was evil in that it 


250 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


was a waste of time, and a draining of vitality that 
would be better spent in spoken and written propa¬ 
ganda, as he did not—not since his experience at Rip¬ 
ple Ford. Moreover, he felt that a meeting with 
emaciated spinsters, sinewy and masculine suffragists, 
and adipose police-women would not be a convincing 
test of one’s self-control. He knew that he could live 
forever—in full possession of his powers—on a desert 
island, alone with Ida or Augusta, Lydia or Estelle, 
and, at the close, meet all the celibate tests of St. Paul. 
Finally, he believed that Tucker had been right when 
he had declared that the return of improper desires 
would be rendered improbable. He feared that they 
would be impossible. He had no longing to go; never¬ 
theless, to please this innocent and high-minded soul, 
he would go once, but—dressed! 

Sunday was a day full of promise. Jeffrey wanted 
to go for a walk in Lincoln Park, but gave it up out 
of respect for Tucker. The attendance at the meeting 
was going to be larger than usual, judging from the 
sound of hurrying footfalls through the corridors of 
the building. Tucker had gone below to welcome his 
disciples. Jeffrey would follow presently. He wanted 
to wait until they had assembled and were absorbed 
in conversation before he entered the court. There 
would be less need for embarrassing introductions, 
and still more embarrassing lapses of memory on his 
part—he couldn’t remember the names of half the 
people he met. Moreover he wanted to see it all at 
once and have it over with. Seated in his room with 
a yellowed pipe, he turned the pages of the forthcom¬ 
ing issue of the magazine—his magazine. Tomorrow 
it would go to the binders; that is to say, it would go 
to the back of the press room, where, with Tucker’s 
help, Avery and some unfortunate tramp would insert 
and stamp the metal fasteners. Jeffrey read again the 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


251 


essays on Nietzche and Samuel Butler. Strange, he 
thought, that he had not heard of these men before. 
He must read the Way of All Flesh and Erewhon 
certainly; and of Nietzsche, Human All Too Human 
and Beyond Good and Evil, judging by the brief 
excerpts, were too good to be missed. He made note 
of the titles, and regretted that they were not pub¬ 
lished in America. 

He looked at his watch,—it was time to go down¬ 
stairs. As a concession to the informality of the occa¬ 
sion he donned a pair of white trousers, a soft shirt, 
low shoes and a bow tie. 

Fully thirty people were gathered in the court, all 
seriously absorbed in high-minded spiritual themes, 
when Jeffrey entered. It was, as he had anticipated, 
as ungainly an assortment of the bloated and blotched 
as could well be imagined. They reminded him of 
Heath Robinson’s illustrations to Rabelais. Estelle 
Beaver, whom he singled out because of her obtrusive 
adiposity, seemed an unshapely mass of oleaginous 
pulp; while poor Augusta, who was holding the ubi¬ 
quitous Max Stirner to her uncovered bosom, was 
but a thin and wavering line. 

“Hey there Jeff, this won’t do,” shouted Tucker, 
“Clothes are immoral here this afternoon. Your gar¬ 
ments are positively suggestive in such a place. Go 
back and get rid of them at once.” 

“Right you are,” Jeffrey responded, accepting the 
good-natured reproof, and, not wishing to debate the 
point, “I’ll be back in a minute.” But he knew at the 
moment that he was lying. He had no intention of 
returning until this farce was over. 

Instead, he redressed himself with more than usual 
care, and taking up his cane and hat, slipped quietly 
out for a walk. Nor did he stop until he was well up 
Sheridan Road towards Evanston, where he turned 


252 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


aside to find a resting place on the shore of the lake. 
He would make up some apology for Tucker—any¬ 
thing would do. Tucker was so damnably good- 
natured that he would forgive anything. But what 
rot this continence business was! It seemed to him 
that pure idealists, perverted puritans, could be the 
least healthy and the most evil-minded of mankind. 
They were looking for sin as the witch-burners of 
Salem had done. They were the logical descendants 
of an unhealthy tribe of kill-joys. Such people were 
either sick from birth, and, too weak to take of pleas¬ 
ure themselves, envious of the joys of the strong; or, 
having overgorged themselves in some unregulated 
debauch in youth, had reacted to a mad extreme. He 
preferred Nell, with all her selfish cunning, to such 
paralytics; she was alive, passionate. Sex a sin ! What 
was it that Robert Buchanan had said? 

“Deem not the deed of kind, Adultery, 

But reverence that function that keeps fair 
The earth, the sea, the ether and the air. 

.... for as thou dost despise thy flesh and frame, 
Shalt thou despise the Lord through whom they came. 

And if one act of these thou deemest base 
Thou spittest in the fountain of all grace.” 

Yes, he decided, the Futurists were weaklings, and 
Tolstoy was their prophet; Tolstoy, whose books were 
but the acrid eructions from an unassimilated lust. 
Why did Tucker, who seemed at least physically 
healthy, attract such ninnies about him? Vegetarians, 
raw food, nasty breath; rot! They needed some of the 
tonics advertised in their magazine. 

But the ceaseless lapping of the blue waters re¬ 
buked his dissatisfactions, and lured his gaze out and 
away from himself, far over the undulating bosom of 
the lake. 


XXIX 


£ £ W-\ OUR o’clock,” said Jeffrey to himself, paus- 
I l ing at the corner of Preston Road and looking 
thoughtfully at his watch. “The freaks ought 
to be gone by now.” Then, looking up towards the 
Fellowship house, “Why, what the devil is all that?” 

Drawn up in front of number 64 was a big motor 
van, on the front seat of which was seated a man wear¬ 
ing the uniform of the police. Jeffrey quickened his 
steps. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed under his breath, 
“can they have had a row?” 

The windows of neighboring apartment houses 
were opened for curious heads, and on the sidewalk 
were a number of excited small boys. Jeffrey thrust 
himself through the crowd, just as Tucker, smiling 
and bland as usual, emerged from the front entrance, 
led by a policeman; behind were Jacob Stein, Avery, 
Estelle Beaver—indignant and protesting,—Lydia 
Moreton, with tear-stained eyes, glowering Ida Lamb 
with clenched fists, and finally, wrapped in the folds 
of a soiled mother-hubbard, Augusta, screaming aloud, 
that she would not, would not, be separated from her 
own Max Stirner. 

“You got to leave him, Lady,” said the officer who 
brought up the rear of this sad procession, “he keeps 
his coat and pants, aw right.” 

“What does this mean, Tucker?” cried Jeffrey, un¬ 
certain and trembling. 

“You keep out of this,” responded the editor, nod¬ 
ding his head toward the house. And then, lowering 
his voice to a whisper, “Get bail.” 

“Spy! Snitch!” shouted Jacob Stein, accusingly, 


254 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


noticing Jeffrey for the first time since his unceremoni¬ 
ous exit—“You’re a fine radical, you are, you damned 
Judas! Too good for the working class!” 

“Shut up!” growled Tucker, “you’re hysterical. You 
don’t know what you’re talking about.” But the 
women glared at Jeffrey suspiciously. 

“Guard the place until you hear from me, O’Rear,” 
directed the officer in charge, speaking to one of his 
subordinates. “Don’t let anyone in or touch anything. 
Start her up, Tim,” and with a roar of the motor, the 
patrol wagon was off, bearing its load of bedraggled 
and hastily dressed idealists to the police station. 

It took some time for Jeffrey to learn what it was 
all about. It seemed that in the course of the after¬ 
noon, a woman, occupying an upper apartment nearby, 
had chanced to glance out of her window overlooking 
the court where the Futurists were desporting them¬ 
selves, and, amazed, yet delighted by the ludicrous 
spectacle, had called the attention of other women in 
the same flat. The Sabbath dullness was dispelled and, 
in the hubbub that followed, an ex-alderman, one Peter 
Stahl, looked out, and, enraged that respectable women 
living under the same roof as himself, should be sub¬ 
jected to such indecent exposures, indignantly called 
for the police. And just as Tucker was saying. 

“Chicago must not only be cleaned of prostitution, 
but out of the mind of every man, woman and child, 
there must be driven the last vestige of impure thought 
and imagination; and we radicals must not confuse 
freedom with license. We must learn to look at the 
human body without shame and know that we are 
made for higher and purer.? 

“This has got to stop.You are under arrest. 

Hurry up and get on some clothes. What do you 

mean?”.came in thundering tones from a florid 

policeman who burst suddenly into the court. 






CABLES OF COBWEB 


255 


“This is an outrage! What right have you to inter¬ 
rupt a peaceful meeting?” cried Ida Lamb, advancing 
toward the officer with clenched fists. 

“Git on some clothes! You ain’t no sight for sore 
eyes,” commanded that official, looking her up and 
down with a disapproving frown. The other police¬ 
men crowding into the court, grinned their apprecia¬ 
tion of this sally. 

Some of the more timid women, sensitive to criti¬ 
cism, and seized by a sudden realization of this alien 
appraisal of their nudity, endeavored to substitute 
newspapers, notebooks or handkerchiefs, for the tradi¬ 
tional fig leaf—Augusta was even trying to utilize the 
unfortunate and protesting Max Stirner for this pur¬ 
pose. Others, frightened by the formidable uniforms 
of the representatives of the law, sought refuge in 
the printing office, hiding in shivering apprehension 
behind type cases, presses, and desks. But, in their 
unprotected state, there was no escape. At length 
they were herded together, and compelled without 
delay to make such toilets as, with shaking fingers, 
they could. 

“Too bad, too bad,” agreed Wallace, over the tele¬ 
phone. “The newspapers will make capital of this. 

Glad you were away.No, you stay where you 

are; don’t go near the station,—the reporters will be 

there; and don’t go back to the Center either. 

Come down to my apartment and spend the night with 
me. I’ll get them out tonight, or first thing in the 
morning. Yes, you can stay up for me if you like. You 
can find something to read, and my man will look 
after you.” 

But Wallace was unable to have the Futurists re¬ 
leased on bail until Monday morning. Jeffrey plead in 
vain to be permitted to go along; he had no wish to 




256 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


be thought afraid. He liked Tucker, and wanted to 
show that he was standing by. 

“It’s foolish,” insisted the attorney. “You can do 
no good, and will merely hurt yourself, and add an¬ 
other picture to the papers. When I come back we 
will go over to the Center together. If the reporters 
question you then, you can say that you are my 
assistant. You stay right here and read these inter¬ 
esting accounts of the ‘raid.’ ” 

Indeed the papers were lurid enough. 

“Love Nest Raided”—was the headline of one. 
Others announced: “Red’s Carnival of Lust Put to 
an End;” “Free Love Center Exposed.” Tucker was 
labelled a socialist, an anarchist, a free-lover, a single¬ 
taxer and a dangerous revolutionist. “Hundreds of the 
naked reds escape,” declared one paper. 

“What lies!” thought Jeffrey; “Why, Tucker is 
repudiated by all these organizations, and has nothing 
to do with them. And as for lust, or even love, the 
Futurists are incapable of it.” He did not know the 
purpose for which newspapers exist. 

“It was too funny,” cried Wallace a few hours later. 
“When I took them back to the Center, Augusta 
Graham found Max Stirner in a compromising and un¬ 
mentionable situation, having as the partner to his 
indecency, a sister of his, an Airedale from across the 
street. Augusta was heart-broken, but unable to res¬ 
cue her pet—ha, ha, ha—I couldn’t forbear quoting 
Shakespeare’s—‘That incestuous, that adulterous 
beast’—And the worst of it was—ha, ha, ha,—the 
other dog’s name is Queen Victoria!” 

“Do they still think that I set the police on them?” 
Jeffrey inquired anxiously, in no mood to appreciate 
this humor. 

“Tucker never thought it; and they all know now 
who did it. That made Tucker almost angry when 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


257 


he found it out. It was a politician by the name of 
Stahl, who owns two or three of the worst bawdy 
houses on South Dearborn Street.” 

In the afternoon, they called at the Center. The 
place was turned topsy-turvy. All of the women were 
preparing* to leave; they blamed Tucker for their mis¬ 
fortune ; he should have had more sense than to have 
held such meetings in the court. Jeffrey noticed that 
those who had formerly been the most enthusiastic 
for the continence conference were now the most 
bitter. Tucker was depressed, his characteristic 
optimism having, for the moment, deserted him—“I 
am not surprised,” he said, “that the conventional 
press is telling lies, but I think that the Socialist 
papers might, at least, have kept quiet. But they have 
to emphasize the fact that they have nothing in com¬ 
mon with my ideas, and that they long ago repudiated 
me.What will the courts do to me, Wallace?” 

“The fact is, Tucker, that things are pretty dark. 
They will be prejudiced against you. I can keep you 
out of a jail sentence, but you will have to pay a 
stiff fine.” 

“. . . . And j for about twenty others,” sighed the 
editor. 

“Shall I go ahead with binding the magazine?” 
asked Collingsworth, hoping to be of some positive 
assistance. 

“The magazine is not to be issued,” replied Tucker 
with a gesture of finality. “First I have a letter from 
the Central news agency saying that the issue is late, 
and, on that excuse, cancelling all orders. That would 
have merely roused my stubbornness; but then came a 
note from a dealer in erotica, asking for five-hundred 
copies for his filthy trade. Not another issue is com¬ 
ing out.” 

“But it is a perfectly respectable number; it seems 




258 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


to me that it would do your cause no harm, to say the 
least/’ Collingsworth urged, reluctant to see this child 
of his still-born. 

“You may keep a few for yourself, before I make a 
bon-fire,” said Tucker, staring into space. 

“Then you don’t mean to keep on here in Chicago, 
1 take it, eh?” questioned the lawyer. 

“I have three hundred acres of land in Arkansas, 
where I can grow peaches and pecans. If I had the 
right kind of a colony established there, I could do 
something. The city is a bad atmosphere for brother¬ 
hood”—The glow returned to the editor’s eyes, as he 
began to unfold the new scheme. “With five acres 
allotted to each member of the fellowship, we might 
make a big thing of it. The sale of this apartment, and 
what I may have left when the courts are through 
fleecing me, will equip us sufficiently. . . . I’m done 

with Chicago”.Then, remembering his young 

assistant, he added.“I am deradfully sorry, Jef¬ 

frey. ... all this mess. . . . don’t let it discourage 
you. It’s part of the battle.” 

“I only wish I could help you, Tucker.it’s a 

damned shame. Can’t I do something?” 

“Absolutely not. I’ll have to stay by until after the 
trial; then Avery and I will quietly get off.” 





XXX 


“ A GOOD sound meal is what you are most in 
Zjk need of, young man,” said Julian Wallace, 

-*■ ■** that evening as 'he and Collingsworth sat 
down in a quiet room at De Jonges. Let’s have a look 
at the menu. I will take a chance of ordering for 
both, eh? Well, first you may bring us two Gibsons— 
my special, you know, Tony—cream of celery soup 
with a bottle of Marguerita Sherry; baked whitefish; 
filet of beef, with the oldest champagne you have; 
roast squabs, with Cockburn’s Port; one coffee and 
Benedictine.” 

“I am sorry for Tucker and all that,” said the 
lawyer, near the close of their dinner, “but it’s a good 
thing, in a way, for you. Already good wine and food 
are bringing a color to your cheeks and a human look 
into your eyes. You couldn’t have done anything out 
there. Tucker wouldn’t have let you make his maga¬ 
zine rational or literary—not for long. But now, if 
you will let me, I have a plan.” 

Chicago, he said, was the great lecture center of 
America. The people went to lectures just as con¬ 
scientiously as, in smaller towns, they attend church. 
In the Loop were theaters filled, Sunday after Sunday, 
for socialist lectures, rationalist lectures, ethical lec¬ 
tures—everything. There was room for a more in¬ 
clusive society where one could have lectures on 
sociology, ethics, literature, philosophy, so treated as 
to be popular and to have bearing on the problems of 
human and social conduct. There were a number of 
persons who were discontented with the narrowness 
of the existing propagandists, and too well educated to 



260 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


pay any heed to Tucker. “They want catholicity within 
reason; but not chaos/’ he explained, “and from what 
you have said and written, I judge you to be the man 
for just such a platform—a humanist platform. That’s 
the name I thought of calling it.” 

“It is good of you to suggest it, and certainly I must 
be doing something. I can’t live on you.” 

“We’ll get your things from Tucker’s tomorrow, 
and then we can look for a room for you. There are 
some places near my apartment. How would you 
like it near the University?” 

“Splendid!” cried Collingsworth, suddenly recalling 
a beautiful face, and then, blushing to a deeper red 
than had been painted by the wine—“for it would be 
so close to you—and the University Library.” 

“Hm,” grunted Wallace, with a suspicious twinkle 
in his eyes. 

The waiter brought one coffee and set it before the 
guest. 

“Aren’t you having coffee?” Jeffrey inquired, to 
cover his confusion. 

“Never touch it myself. I knew you’d want it, being 
from the South. But my father taught me to avoid 
evil. I remember it as though it were yesterday.” 

“ ‘Coffee’,” said my father to me, on the morning of 
my tenth birthday, ‘coffee’ he repeated,—pouring me 
a glass of sound Scotch whiskey—‘is a thing you 
must never touch; it is very dangerous, it and tea, 
to the philoprogenitive instincts, without the proper 
exercise of which life would be unsupportable’— 

“Come,” continued the lawyer, rising and holding 
up a glass of golden Benedictine, “drink with me to 
the memory of my sainted father.” 


XXXI 


I T was late in October before he saw Hughley, who 
was, by this time, well under way in his new work 
at the Dickenson school. Alvin Gregg, the head¬ 
master, Hughley confided, let him do as he liked, 
and he was thus enabled to try out any educational 
theory he chose. Just now he was placing emphasis 
on simplified spelling and sentence reading; taking 
especial delight in the latter in that it did away with 
the cumbrous necessity for learning the alphabet. 
Within the great English Gothic building he pointed 
out each device created for the advancement of learn¬ 
ing. The youngsters who were fortunate enough to 
attend this modern school lacked no means of satisfy¬ 
ing their curiosity; indeed every nook of every room 
contained some strange apparatus to provoke investi¬ 
gation. And outside, on the playground, was a vast 
relief map of the world, done in cement, and of such 
proportions to permit, when properly inundated, of a 
complete terrestrial voyage in the small boat which 
was provided for this purpose. 

“You’re a lucky devil, Hughley,” said Collingsworth. 
“Educational radicalism is much more respectable and 
better provided for than social heresy.” 

“I was sorry to hear of the Tucker fiasco,” the other 
returned. “You are lucky yourself not to have been 
mentioned by the papers; but tell me of your new 
venture?” 

Julian Wallace had been a godsend, Collingsworth 
explained. He had organized a small society of ration- 
ists and liberals, hired the Irving theater for Sunday 
afternoon meetings, and now, after three Sundays, 


262 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


they had an audience of over six hundred persons. 
Everything was very promising. 

“But are you making a living?” 

‘Tm not in it for that exactly,”—a little stiffly— 
“but Wallace, who has had a lot of experience with 
that sort of thing, says that before the year is done 
I will be getting two hundred a month.” 

“Good enough! I hope he is right; and I am glad 

that you live near by.If you will come with 

me into the assembly room a moment, I’ll go along 
and see your apartment. Ed almost forgotten that 
one of my boys is doing a neglected composition. 

The youngster was still laboring on the last sentence 
when they found him. “Let me see it, Tad,” Hughley 
requested. . . Then, after a brief examination,—“How 
do you spell ‘symptom?’” 

“I don’t know, I guess,”—with a sheepish grin. 

“Look it up in the dictionary.” 

Collingsworth, standing near that huge volume, ob¬ 
served that the small boy was at a loss. He fumbled 
and turned the pages aimlessly. Jeffrey stepped 
nearer, and saw that the feckless child was no further 
along than the g’s. “I’ll find it for you,” he volun¬ 
teered sympathetically, turning at once to the sy’s. 

“Gee! How do you do it?” breathed the boy in 
amazed relief. 

“Old stuff—I learned the alphabet,” whispered Col¬ 
lingsworth with a smile. 

Walking up the Midway, Jeffrey was reminded of 
the girl whose image the months had dimmed, but not 
by any means effaced. After some hesitation, he told 
the story to Hughley. 

“Ho! So you are beginning to fall? I thought you 
didn’t take any interest in women?” 

“This one was different.” 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


263 


‘'Of course; they always are.” 

“She looked intelligent, and was beautiful.” 

“A rare combination; useless prodigality on the 
part of nature,—when either one is fatal of itself.” 

“Nonsense, I tell you she was beautiful.” 

“You are in love.” 

“That is not a crime, even if it were true.” 

“Love is a mere matter of skin,” recited the de¬ 
tached pedagogue who had read French fiction to some 
purpose. 

“But I should like to meet her; and I have no better 
clues than than she did graduate work last year under 
Vincent, and that her initials are H. B. S. Damn it! 
There were three H. B. S’s who did graduate work 
last year.” 

“I have it!” exclaimed Hughely, greatly amused by 
his friend’s affair. “Alvin Gregg’s sister Mary was 
graduated last year from the University, and is there 
now working for a Ph. D. I’ll bet she can find out who 
the girl was. Now,”—taking out his notebook—“you 
say her initials are H. B. S.? Describe her.” 

“Imposible!” 

“Rot! She isn’t imponderable ether.” 

“I’m not so certain,” retorted Collingsworth, after 
which, as if better to reassure himself of the girl’s 
reality, he launched forth upon a glowing account of 
her several charms. 

“A very good picture of the conventional heroine of 
fiction, but it will lead to nothing.” 

“Well, then, she has nice large white teeth, brown 
eyes and hair,—and a shapely ankle. When last seen, 
she was wearing a tailored suit to match her hair. . .” 

“Didn’t she have a birthmark, or a mole, or six fin¬ 
gers on the hand—something distinguishing?” 


264 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“She didn’t wear flat-heeled shoes,” added Collings¬ 
worth, with emphasis. 

“I will give your colorful description to Miss Gregg 
when I see her,” said Hughely, returning the note¬ 
book to his pocket. 


XXXII 


( 1 ) 

T WO years pass very rapidly when one is young, 
and there is work to do, and there are ambitions 
to be fulfilled. And when in addition to these 
trivialities, there is added the more serious business 
of giving and receiving good dinners, duration be¬ 
comes as debatable a subject as the existence of matter 
to a Berkeleyan metaphysician, or of spirit to a fol¬ 
lower of Buchner. 

The Humanist Society had proved to be all that 
Julian Wallace had prophesied: There had been an 
average attendance of a thousand persons every Sun¬ 
day for forty weeks of the year, and the remuneration 
had been sufficient to provide good clothes, room rent, 
excellent meals, books, and an occasional present to 
be sent home. The people who came to these lectures 
were drawn from what is called, out of some slight 
deference to the caste system, the upper middle 
classes, and, to all appearances, challenged comparison 
with the communicants of any respectable Protestant 
congregation. Collingsworth discovered, after a few 
encounters in a social way, that most of his followers 
were a little dull, and seldom did he go to their din¬ 
ners, where he had found, to his disgust, that he was 
either lionized, or treated as if he were a parson. They 
wanted him to tell them, again and again, the quickest 
method for dispatching orthodoxy, and to repeat his 
lectures between courses over the dining room table. 

So that he had been glad when Wallace had rescued 
him and carried him off to those Bohemian gatherings 


266 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


at Mme. Galli’s or Andrini’s. Nothing was expected 
of one at these places save good fellowship; there were 
no cut-and-dried conversations. One grew tired of 
talking shop forever. At Andrini’s one had tasty 
Italian dishes, reasonably good wine, and no end of 
spontaneous talk. Even the propagandists who fre¬ 
quented this little basement cafe became amiable in 
the more catholic atmosphere. There were journal¬ 
ists, freak poets, budding novelists, artists, and more 
or less obvious women. When gathered about the 
long tables, they began talking to one another without 
the formality of introduction. It was a novelty to 
this country bred young man, more agreeable than 
the grocery-store environment at Tucker’s, or the 
dreariness of the evangelical boards where either 
theology or pure reason drove spontaneity forth from 
their presence as a plague, and laid for a cover the 
frosty mantle of propriety. To be sure, the dinners 
were not such as Wallace would order at De Jonge’s 
where he would insist upon proper wine for every 
course,—but one must not expect a wholly civilized 
dinner every day. 

And the people? Jacobs would be at Andrini’s base¬ 
ment before all others, gazing thoughtfully at the 
bottom of an empty glass—Jacobs who was a Jew of 
Jews, but who hated all other Jews, and liked nothing 
better than to offer insult to some member of his race. 
But in the midst of gaiety he would fling aside his 
melancholy and presently, when talk was at its height, 
would leap to the piano and play Tschaikowsky or 
Dvorak by the hour; while Stanley Farrington, 
mounted on a chair, would endeavor to recite a poem 
from Baudelaire, or do an act from the Wild Duck. 

Then there was Trueman, from the Board of Trade, 
who slept silently through all talk of painting, and 
exhibits, symphonies and philosophy, and only awoke 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


267 


when sex was mentioned. If some near-Puritan were 
present, he would make the only speech he had ever 
been heard to utter: “Garmon, bring me the glands 
of an intact male cow, just brought to the boiling point, 
and seasoned with the merest pinch of salt—the merest 
pinch.” After which, unless the sex talk were pro¬ 
longed—and it usually was—he would relapse into 
profound slumber. 

And there was Peter Canby, the poet laureate of 
Andrini’s, who employed the metres of Swinburne to 
celebrate the youth of Chicago; who felt more than 
he thought; who saw mystic significance in the very 
letters of the alphabet and in the figures that baser 
men use for counting gold; who was a symbolist, re¬ 
garding 7 as a challenge, and A as an invitation. 

Conrad, who made his living by writing for the 
syndicates, was a weaver of wierd romance, and had, 
it was rumored, no less than forty rejected manuscripts 
of as many full-length novels in his closet. He had 
very generously introduced Collingsworth to the 
International Syndicate, and by now that young man 
was able to supplement his income quite substantially 
by writing unsigned stories that were sold to the 
country press. Conrad hated the realism of Stephen 
Crane, and the naturalism of Zola. . . “I hate all this 
talk about calling a spade a spade; don’t do it. But 
even that is better than calling a heart a heart; for I 
am persuaded that the heart is connected somehow 
with the urinogenital system.” 

Someone would interrupt with a statement about 
the necessity for picturing life as it is, and making 
characters in fiction think and speak as ordinary human 
beings. 

“No,” he would retort, “We must not write or talk 
about the things that are constantly on our minds; it 



268 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


is filthy. Only the things we dream at odd moments 
are proper to a work of art.” 

But some of the women would object that it was 
only in their dreams that indecency occurred to them. 

“That brings us to the problem of terrestrial mag¬ 
netism,” he would reply. Then, in defiance of his 
canons of art, he would narrate some curious tale, 
beginning— 

“One fine day a very strong and well-knit young 
friar was walking down a lane in Tuscany where he 
chanced to meet a singularly beautiful milkmaid, 

and.” He would finish by making some absurd 

remark to the effect that marriage was an exchange 
of hair for horns. Whereat Jeffrey would try to divert 
him from this strain of pessimism by telling how that 
in the Appalachian mountains the word cuckold still 
lingered as a common expression, whereas the fact of 
cuckoldry was rare in those regions. 

“But here, where every man covers his horns with 
his hat, the word is not only dead but forbidden, and 
rightly so; realistic suggestion, even, is horrible,” Con¬ 
rad could interject. 

As the hours passed the company, by now well under 
the liberating influence of wine, would occasionally 
break into song; beneath the tables, the unmanicured 
sought the unmentionable; and the snatches of talk, 
as they reached Jeffrey’s ear, would be somewhat 
irrelevant:— 

“. . . . Maeterlinck’s characters move through a mist 
of sadness against a background of.” “veal kid¬ 

neys and mushrooms make a capital dinner when 

you.” “Not to Turgenev, but to Dostoievsky 

must we go for the fiction technique of the future.” 

.“O, the brute!”.“Yes, he hit her on 

the Adam’s apple with her favorite copy of Science 
and Healths “I don’t blame her for getting a di- 







CABLES OF COBWEB 


269 


vorce.”.“the most exquisite feeling, my dear, 

but no power; his brush work is simply wonderful. . 

.“Waiter! More apricot brandy.”.“A 

sweet little thing; I do think she is making such a 

mistake.that man. I don’t know what I can 

give her that will be suitable.” .... “a copy of 
Aretino’s Sonnets with the illustrations of Romano.” 

Reluctantly would the proprietor interrupt this in¬ 
consequential chatter with the announcement that it 
was closing time; whereat, with one, accord, they 
would join in singing:— 

“Let dogs and divels die: 

Let wits and money fly: 

Let the slaves of the earth 
Be abortive in their birth: 

Well or ill come what care I; 

For I will roar, I will drink, I will.” 

But Collingsworth’s visit to these places began, 
after a time, to grow more and more infrequent. They 
were all very well, he reflected, for a change, and some 
of the people who went there were interesting when 
alone; but every person added to a group lessened its 
intelligence, increased its superficiality. He came to 
prefer a quiet table at Vogelsang’s, where, with Julian 
Wallace or Kupmeyer, he could enjoy a more intimate 
conversation over a pewter tankard of rich brown 
Culmbacher. This preference for small companies, he 
insisted, was not due to any Puritan reaction, but to a 
certain selective sense; a desire to get the best out of 
people, or, rather, the cleverest. And to justify this 
attitude to Wallace, who maintained that the parting 
song at Andrini’s sounded the most profound depth 
of human philosophy, he would quote Emerson’s “We 
descend to meet,” or Wilde’s—“I never object to what 
charming people do.” “But,” he would add, “I do 







270 CABLES OF COBWEB 

object to license among the vulgar, the ugly and the 
stupid!” 

( 2 ) 

During this period, he had been frequently urged 
to meet General Carlos Sanquijuela, a Mexican re¬ 
former, who, from having served under Diaz in a 
distinguished capacity, had, because of his increasing 
love for humanity, moved south to Yucatan where he 
had discovered, far back in the interior, a very unique 
and beautiful system of communism practised by the 
natives. These gentle people, he had said, fashioned 
jewelry, carved images, wove delicate fabrics, and 
brought these, together with the more homely pro¬ 
ducts of their toil, to certain central market-places 
where they were offered freely to all who might desire 
them. Thither came the farm folk, bearing the fruits 
of the soil, which, in like manner, they exposed to 
the needy. A sort of exchange was thus effected 
without any seeming taint of barter or any effort to 
the end of sale. It was an attractive picture, and Gen¬ 
eral Sanquijuela had frequently been invited to tell 
the story in many drawing rooms of the stately homes 
along Lake Shore Drive during the six months of his 
stay in Chicago. Before that, he had visited Los 
Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Minneapolis, 
arousing among the liberals in each of those cities a 
keen interest resulting in no inconsiderable practical 
success. For the amiable communists of Yucatan, he 
insisted, were hungry, not for material but for intel¬ 
lectual food. They had no schools and no books; and 
it was his self-appointed task to act as Minister of 
Education, and to become an ambassador seeking 
that wherewith to establish a system of public schools, 
and, as an apex to the system, a University of Yucatan. 
Unless it were done at once, speculators would enter 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


271 


the peaceful communities—all the communists were 
non-resistant pacifists—to exploit their lands and 
seize their wealth. He was a singularly modest per¬ 
son, refusing on all occasions to speak in public in 
behalf of the people he loved, preferring rather to meet 
small groups of serious-minded and well-to-do radicals 
with whom he could talk heart to heart. In his un¬ 
assuming way he had already won a multitude of 
friends, many of whom had given largely for his 
educational projects, and who were anxious to sell all 
their goods, acquired under a hateful capitalism, to 
become citizens of so ideal a state. This last ambition 
the General had been quick to discourage. He would 
prepare the way, in due time, for the entrance of 
foreign idealists seeking in good faith so perfect an 
asylum; but meantime, there were hostile forces in 
Mexico whose suspicions must be allayed before such 
immigration could be undertaken. The existence of 
these forces, he said, was one reason why he never 
spoke in public; such a move might seem to cast un¬ 
favorable reflection upon his native state, and thus 
destroy, through international complications, the mis¬ 
sion that was to him so dear. 

“You must meet the General, Mr. Collingsworth,” 
urged Mrs. Rexford, one of the leaders of the Humanist 
Society—, “he is so interesting and is engaged in such 
a wonderful work for a people who are really accom¬ 
plishing something. A little group of us are giving 
a dinner at the Tortilla Cafe, and I want you to come 
and sit near him; he is so dear and so wonderful. It 
will do your heart good; and it will be just splendid 
to have you beautiful men together, for both of you 
are working to the same end.” 

Thus urged, there was nothing for it but to go. 
Mrs. Rexford was a very genuine, and, aside from her 
excessive use of exaggerative adjectives, a thoroughly 


272 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


charming woman. In proof of her heart-felt interest 
in Yucatan, she had sold a valuable section of land 
in Nebraska and given the entire proceeds for the 
erection of the Liberal Arts building, and the estab¬ 
lishment of a chair of applied ethics in the new uni¬ 
versity. In return, General Sanquijuela had presented 
this open-hearted benefactress with an illumined 
parchment naming her as one of the founders of the 
institution, and bearing, in the lower corner, his own 
ancient family seal. 

Told that he might bring a friend if he chose, Col¬ 
lingsworth invited Kupmeyer to accompany him. 

General Sanquijuela presented an appearance quite 
in keeping with the reputation he bore among the 
radicals. From the snugness with which his frock coat 
adjusted itself to his narrow waist and smoothed out 
over his hips, one might have fancied him to have 
worn a corset. A little man of not over five feet six 
inches, the thick iron gray hair, bushy brows half 
concealing a pair of alert black eyes, the bayonet-like 
mustachios and wedge-shaped white goatee, gave him a 
formidableness that one would not have suspected 
from hearing the purring tone of his voice. 

Mrs. Rexford had insisted that, in honor of the 
distinguished guest, the dinner should abound with 
Mexican dainties, and, to meet this demand, the chef 
had outdone himself; the food was as burning hot 
as if it had issued from the very pits of Inferno. The 
guests would nibble, and then hastily raise their 
glasses. Jeffrey felt that Lake Michigan would be 
perceptibly lower by morning, and was as comforted 
when the guest of honor turned red and coughed over 
his food, as he was shocked when the Mexican asked 
permission of his hostess to make a special order of 
lamb cutlets— 

“You see,” he explained apologetically, “I have been 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


273 


many months in your delightful country, and I have 
come to have a great fondness for your American 
cooking, and now that I am going back so soon, I 
like to eat your delicious meats while I may—you will 
excuse ?” 

He seemed determined to make himself an Amer¬ 
ican in every way, even refusing to answer a ques¬ 
tion which Kupmeyer had addressed to him in Spa¬ 
nish.— 

“No, no, my friend, we must not. I see you are not 
a fellow-countryman, anyway”—giving the German 
a searching look—“and besides, while we are in the 
presence of so many who wish to hear everything, 
and who could not understand, it would be unfair. 
But”—he added graciously—“you speak excellent 
Spanish.” 

While they were still toying with their coffee cups, 
Mrs. Rexford tapped on the table for quiet, then turn¬ 
ing to the General.— 

“We are all just dying to hear more of your beautiful 
Yucatan, General Sanquijuela. Some of us have yet 
to hear anything of those dear people, and those of 
us who have can never hear too much. Won’t you 
talk to us now in your own informal way?” she fin¬ 
ished with a smile. 

“Sen—I beg pardon! Ladies and gentlemen. You 
will excuse me if I lapse now and then into my native 
tongue? It is so difficult.” 

Jeffrey noticed that after the opening sentences, 
which were spoken with great deliberation, the speaker 
never lapsed into his native tongue. The more eloquent 
he became, the more rapidly he spoke, the more per¬ 
fect was his English. 

“How these foreigners master our language,” Col¬ 
lingsworth commented to one of the women when the 
speech was done, “and the most amazing thing about 



274 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


it all was that in the most passionate periods he never 
faltered once.” 

“That is the way his subconscious yields to him,” 
the woman replied. “The subconscious will perform 
miracles if we give it a chance. Oh, he is marvellous, 
marvellous!” 

The speech had been very moving. The man de¬ 
scribed how the little children, who never had a 
thought of mine and thine, would share with sweet 
unselfishness their most precious possessions; how 
men and women uncursed by the greed of civilization, 
would urge, with quaint simplicity, priceless gifts 
upon strangers. As he talked, the women had fre¬ 
quent recourse to their handkerchiefs, and some of 
the men were uncomfortably red about the eyes. Jeffrey 
had more than once to secretly prick himself with a 
pin to avoid the contagion of tears. 

The communists of Yucatan were more than a 
thousand dollars the richer for the evening’s work, 
and Jeffrey promised that on the following Sunday 
he would speak for a few minutes of Sanquijuela’s 
mission and endeavor to have a contribution given by 
the Humanists. He urged the Mexican reformer to 
make use of his platform, but to no avail. “I must 
not risk international complications,” he plead. Nor 
would he consent to be present w T hen the announce¬ 
ment was to be made. “Let Mrs. Rexford take care 
of that,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders—“your 
people know her. It is best.” 

“I wish we could raise money that easily for our 
work here in the United States,” sighed the tinner, 
as they were leaving the meeting, “but it takes a 
foreign cause to draw money, from the rich. It is a 
substitute for missions.” 

“Don't you approve of General Sanquijeula ?” Jeffrey 
asked, in some surprise. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


275 


“Well,” answered the other, “of course this affair 
in Yucatan is not socialism; it is a primitive commun¬ 
ism, which, in the natural course of evolution must pass 
and give way to capitalism before there can be a real 
socialization of wealth. . . . and, anyway, the man 
might have answered my question in English.” 

According to promise, Jeffrey, still under the spell 
of the far-off Utopia concerning which, in such glow¬ 
ing terms, he had lately heard, gave a brief outline 
of the General’s address, and urged the Humanists 
to respond liberally to the great cause. To his sur¬ 
prise, nearly live hundred dollars were added to the 
endowment fund of the university. Mrs. Rexford 
made a speech of thanks, and, on the day following, 
came a neatly penned note from General Sanquijuela 
himself, expressing his profound gratitude, hoping 
that he might soon avail himself of the privilege of 
attending one of the meetings at the Irving Theatre, 
and adding the further hope that Sehor Collingsworth 
might be prevailed upon, in the not distant future, to 
give a course of lectures before the university for 
which he had spoken such kind words. 

Early one morning, about two weeks later, Jeffrey 
was rudely awakened by a persistent ringing of the 
telephone bell. 

“Damn the telephone, and all infernal modern con¬ 
veniences !” he exclaimed, as, unable to endure the 
noise, he rose and slipped a bathrobe over his 
shoulders.— 

“Hello!” he shouted into the harmless transmitter, 
making his voice as profane as he dared. 

“Hold your horses, and don’t be cross, old man,” 
came Wallace’s voice in reply. “You haven’t seen the 
morning paper, by any chance, have you?” 


276 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“You know I never read the papers/’ he returned, 
greatly mollified. 

“Then get on your clothes, eat a hearty breakfast, 
and after that read the Tribune—first page, headline 
and last column. . . no, I mustn’t spoil a good story... 
the joke is on you as well as on a lot of your friends... 
Goodbye.” 

Something in Wallace’s voice had suggested excite¬ 
ment as well as amusement, so, without heeding the 
practical admonition regarding a sound preparatory 
breakfast, he secured the paper at once and read:— 

“General Carlos Sanquijuela—alias John Henry 
Sawyers, alias Tobias Russell—arrested on charge of 
getting money under false pretenses. Thought to 
have secured more than two hundred thousand dollars 
from prominent Chicagoans. Has served a term at 
Sing-Sing, and one at Leavenworth. Former pastor 
of a church in Connecticut which he served under the 
name of Tobias Russell, and lately swindled through 
a fake oil scheem.” 

The paper gave the full history of the man who, 
it seemed, had been arrested the night before in his 
rooms at the Auditorium Hotel. He had been born 
in New York, and had never been any further into 
Mexico than Tia Juana. After two years at Yale, 
he had entered the ministry; followed that by a period 
at Sing-Sing prison; had tried, on his release, to sell 
stock in a company which proposed making flour from 
bananas; had spent a few years in the federal prison 
in Kansas, and had, just now, been engaged in what 
had promised to be the most successful venture of 
his entire career, when the detectives had discovered 
him. Only a few hundred dollars of the moneys that 
he had received could be found, and the man stub¬ 
bornly persisted that the bulk of his profits had been 
already spent. On being confronted by a Spanish 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


277 


interpreter, it had been found that the General was 
unable to speak more than a dozen words of that 
language. Pictures of Sanquijuela and the unfortunate 
Mrs. Rexford (who was named as the heaviest loser of 
all), adorned the front page, and telegraphic dispatches 
from the cities further west testified to the fact that 
the endowment fund of Yucatan University was one 
of the largest known to modern educational history. 

Then it came to pass that Mr. Jeffrey Collingsworth 
of Virginia laid hold on the nearest and most fitting 
expletive that came to hand, or, more accurately, to 
tongue. It consisted, primarily, of a brief, and possibly 
libellous, statement concerning the relationship of 
the late General to his mother, and defined the social 
and ethical status of that lady by a crisp and colorful 
adjective. This was prefaced by a blunt theological 
assumption, and an iconoclastic invocation done in 
two monosyllables, the whole making one of the most 
soul-satisfying epithets ever invented to relieve the 
pent-up emotions and calm the tormented spirit of 
suffering mankind. 

He began to tire of radicalism. 

( 3 ) 

Perhaps it was the contrast of his thick black hair 
to the white chiselled face, heightening, as it did, the 
pallor of his countenance and lending to it the spirit¬ 
uality of a Savonarola; perhaps it was the long taper¬ 
ing fingers moving nervously to turn the pages of his 
manuscript; perhaps the far-off and somewhat wistful 
look of the deep-set eyes, suggesting a hunger that 
was not yet appeased; or, it may have been the deep 
vibratory tones of his voice issuing from generous 
lips; the women, however, declared that it was the 
beauty of his language, enriched by curious and 


278 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


jewelled adjectives, and the eager and intransigent 
quality of his idealism that won their hearts. What¬ 
ever it may have been, it is certain that they crowded 
forward at the close of each lecture and bestowed 
upon him many words of caressing praise, accen¬ 
tuated by the warm pressure of their soft white hands. 
These tributes were, in most cases, no doubt, but the 
impersonal expressions of a momentary gratitude; 
sometimes they arose from the instinct to mother, or 
the desire to encourage; but not infrequently they 
sprang from a conscious or unconscious biological 
need. At first Collingsworth’s head was too thickly 
encompassed by the luminous mist of his dreams to 
perceive any difference between the personal and im¬ 
personal encomium, and he welcomed each such testi¬ 
mony as an added evidence of the ultimate triumph of 
truth. Moreover, during the first months of his lecture¬ 
ship, the persistent echo of a saucy voice and the mem¬ 
ory of a face so lingered with him that he was insen¬ 
sible to other charms. Gradually, however, that memory 
became dim, and his vision foreshortened; he would 
never find the girl of the train, he told himself. Mean¬ 
time, certain women, by now convinced that his irres¬ 
ponsiveness was due to the innocence of a virginal 
immaturity, made more obvious attempts to secure 
his attention. And, even after he came to earth, fully 
conscious of the emotions of these adoring ones, and 
now in a mood ready to succumb, he was able, with¬ 
out invoking the aid of moral principles, to withstand 
the wiles of fully a score; to have resisted more 
would have savored of an unamiability not worthy of 
a gentleman—and, besides, the twenty-first was 
charming. 

Lois was a soft and fluffy little blonde of, perhaps, 
twenty-two, whose big blue eyes were dilated with 
the wonder of a world behind whose material seeming 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


279 


one might, at any instant, behold the unbearably beau¬ 
tiful presence of the immortal gods. But, by some 
sad perversion of events, she got no further in her 
mystic quest than an inconsequent perusal of Maeter¬ 
linck would allow. Thus it was that, instead of becom¬ 
ing a vestal virgin in some sacred temple where she 
might have participated in the rights of an awful 
hierurgy, she flitted about the foyers of dusty lecture 
halls in an uncertain hero worship. In the person of 
every writing man as of every orator ^he beheld the 
dim outlines of a god. 

Back in New York, before she had read Maeterlinck, 
she had been loved by a contractor to whom she had 
been engaged, with whom, truth to say, she had lived 
for a time; but he had been indefinite about the date 
of their marriage, so that, by the time she had finished 
Monna Vanna, finding herself free, she had slipped 
away in search of some hero with whom she might 
scale the heights, and, in that rare atmosphere, enjoy 
a more spiritual union. Then she had come to Chicago 
and found Jeffrey. 

Time after time she had flashed her signals of lone¬ 
liness from a seat in the mezzanine floor across to the 
stage, but somehow—as she explained it to herself—, 
their souls did not synchronize, and the telepathy 
failed. So, mistrusting the futile wireless of the spirit, 
she resorted to the less subtle contact of a vibratory 
hand. This, too, seemed doomed to meet with no res¬ 
ponse, until, grown bold by desperation, she had ven¬ 
tured to say, almost in a whisper:— 

“I am very lonely in this big, strange city. 

I should like to talk to you; to get a reading list if 
you would be so good.” She raised her eyes in ap¬ 
peal ; and he, looking down into their liquid depths, 
saw and trembled and,—understood. 

“Could you come along with me now to a quiet 



280 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


little place where we could have dinner and talk quite 
undisturbed?” he ventured, moved by a sudden desire 
to explore the uncharted. 

“That would be delightful—if you are sure it won’t 
be troubling you.” 

“You are too modest; it it a privilege.” 

The rest was conventional enough—or unconven¬ 
tional (according to the point of view). The desert 
blossomed for a few short weeks, and then the flowers, 
from an insufficient moisture, faded. An apartment 
on the South Side, dinners, taxicabs, a concert—bore¬ 
dom. For he was moved by no passion other than a 
curiosity that was sated all too soon; nor was he able 
to hit upon the mystic key that would unlock the 
shadowed doors to the Intruder, and the Seven Prin¬ 
cesses or Peleas and Melisande. And he would have 
disentangled himself and gone away had it not been 
for the fear of bruising her spirit. For, though vastly 
ignorant, she was a sensitive creature and quick to 
note a change of his moods. He sought to disguise 
his disappointment beneath baskets of cut flowers and 
with the mask of a smile; but she saw and knew. And 
thus before dullness had turned into disgust; and 
while there was yet courtesy to soften the edge of 
scorn, she went away. 

One morning he found a note charged with gentle¬ 
ness and regret, but bearing no message of reproach. 
She had returned to the man in New York whose 
simple needs she understood, to whom she had much 
to give. 

He was both glad and sad; relieved and self-accus¬ 
ing. But he said to himself that he had learned one 
thing: that freedom might be as entangling, and well 
nigh as inescapable, as the most rigid legality; and 
that, hence, it was the part of wisdom to take as much 
care in forming a free alliance as in entering mat- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


281 


rimony. He was thankful that it had been Lois, to 
whom to be undesired was intolerable; and for her 
he breathed a prayer upon the winds. 

And yet—wisdom and high resolve are but chaff, 
and we the play balls of vital forces; for, after all the 
meditation and logic, there came, within sixty days, 
Martha! 

Martha Winfrey was the wife of a man who had 
made enough of a fortune from his mines in Arizona 
to justify his marrying one of the most extravagant 
young women in the city of Phoenix. One of her first 
demands had been that they forsake the limited so¬ 
ciety of the small city for cultured Boston. Once 
there, however, the woman had found her husband’s 
money an unavailing means of introduction to Back 
Bay drawing rooms, and out of sheer loneliness, had 
been forced to seek other outlets for her energy and 
her lord’s purse. He had already found comparative 
content in one of the less exclusive clubs. First she 
took to studying period furniture and filling her home 
from the antique shops; then came oriental rugs; then 
Japanese prints; then books—for their bindings rather 
than their contents. Beginning with gaudy sets of 
de luxe editions, dressed in colors to harmonize with 
the lamp shades, she had passed on rapidly to Riviere’s, 
Zaehnsdorf’s and Cobden-Sanderson’s. Through her 
visits to the old book stores she came to know some¬ 
what of the fascinating craft of binding, and was in¬ 
spired to take lessons therein. There were no chil¬ 
dren—thanks to recent discoveries in antiseptic sur¬ 
gery—and, since, being an energetic Western woman, 
she must do something, she dragged her unwilling 
husband to London where he must needs spend idle 
hours about American bars whilst her fingers acquired 
the skill to transform the odorous skins of pigs and 


282 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


goats into finely tooled coverings for precious books, 
When they had at last returned to America, she had, 
incontinent, insisted upon pulling up their wealth of 
antiques and moving to the more democratic and hos¬ 
pitable city of Chicago. Here, she thought, money 
would do almost as much for one as it would in 
Phoenix. 

But furniture and rugs, or even the pleasant task of 
binding her favorite books, cannot wholly content the 
life of a vigorous woman who has yet to pass the thir¬ 
tieth birthday. For while she had been busy filling her 
house and her mind, her husband had been filling his 
stomach with those beverages which, lightly tasted, 
lend zest, but, heavily imbibed, bring paralysis to— 
well—this, that and the other. She grew fretful and 
went upon the search for adventure; and she knew 
definitely what she wanted. By the time she met 
Jeffrey Collingsworth her shyness had worn away, and 
her technique, if somewhat obvious, was calculated to 
bring immediate or no results. 

She had, by accident, attended one of his lectures, 
and, attracted alike by the depth of his voice and the 
curve of his nose, had drawn certain conclusions. 
Thereafter she had listened enough to learn that he 
was fond of books, and that he had read such divers 
writers as Casanova and Schopenhauer. 

It began by her inviting him to ride in her car; her 
speed made him nervous. Then she asked him to 
read to her. “Your voice has such depth, such pen¬ 
etration,” she urged, hoping to move him by flattery. 
But he was used to flattery, and acknowledged the 
tribute with cold politeness. Then she tried him with 
books; and presently was rewarded with the first 
gleam of interest. For while his life had been given 
to the company of books as such, he was yet to know 
of first editions, and rare bindings. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


283 


He was more interested in the early editions of 
Malory, and Burton, Cervantes and Swift; and in the 
folios and quartos of Shakespeare, particularly when 
they remained in their original bindings of paneled 
calf. The smooth brown sides of a small folio of 
Montaigne were especially fascinating—(she had 
taken him to the old corner at McClurg’s where rare 
things used to abound). The prices of these treasures, 
however, appalled him at first; and he was astonished 
to learn that the Religio Medici which he had so 
carelessly borne on his northern pilgrimage, done up in 
a disreputable scarf, was an especially rare first edition, 
worth three hundred dollars. He secretly congra¬ 
tulated himself upon a single state wherein he might, 
after a time, by foregoing some of his downtown din¬ 
ners, indulge in the luxury of acquiring a few of the 
less expensive of these enviable possessions. Next, 
through the courtesy of a salesman, with whom she 
was evidently well acquainted, she introduced him 
to the tempting literature of English book catalagues; 
and, with this as an excuse, invited him to her home. 

“I will give you any number of catalogues, and you 
can write to England and soon surround yourself with 
infinite temptation,” she said. “Besides, you must 
see my bindery. Binding is something you would 
love.” 

“The very word frightens me.” 

“It is quite harmless, and has proved a great solace 
to me.” She sighed deeply, then went on: “Anyway, 
you will want to look at my books—especially my rare 
Perfumed Garden 

“That intrigues me. But what is the Perfumed Gar¬ 
den r 

“Sh! Not so loud.—It is a precious item.” 

Collingsworth, unfamiliar with the terminology of 


284 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


collectors, had never before heard a book called an 
“item.” 

“When you come, be sure to bring that book you 
were speaking of last Sunday—Schopenhauer’s—what 
was it?” 

“You mean the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Suf¬ 
ficient Reason?” 

“That’s it; no wonder I couldn’t remember the title. 
But I want you to read some of it to me. Would 
Wednesday afternoon be convenient for you?” 

She greeted him warmly, and led him at once to the 
chamber she had fitted up for a bindery. “Did you 
bring your Fourfold Root —of—er— Sufficient Evil?” 
she demanded as they entered the room. 

“Reason, not evil,” he corrected. 

“It comes to the same thing—in the end.” 

“Yes, I have it here in my pocket.” 

“I do hope your voice is in a good condition for a 
long reading.” 

“Quite strong enough for the purpose, thanks; but 
you must tell me about these implements, and just 
how you go about the work of binding. What are 
these?” 

“Ah, they are my tools—all sizes you see; these 
little ones are suitable for this tiny volume of Victorian 
verse, but the great Elizabethan folio requires a big, 
masterful tool, like this. . . I love to handle the larger 
implements, such as the one you have there.” 

“And you press them.?” 

“Right into the leather, when it is moist—thus. 
The tool must be warm, almost hot. That one is a 
designing tool.”—And she went on enthusiastically, 
explaining the process of blind-tooling, and telling 
how carefully she had to watch for the signatures in 
the sheets; and showed him how to place the press-pin 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


285 


for screwing down each volume firmly. She really 
needed a strong man to assist her at this work, she 
said. From the beating stones she led him to the 
blocking press, and from there to her leather chest. 

To all of these details he listened with interest, won¬ 
dering how it could be that after undergoing these 
mechanical processes, step by step, through stitching 
and hammering, blocking and trimming, these master¬ 
pieces of thought and feeling could retain their majesty 
and their magic. And yet, there before him, she tri¬ 
umphantly displayed the finished products of her lov¬ 
ing toil, handsomely outfitted in new suits of shiny 
leather. 

“But this is boring, I am afraid; come into the li¬ 
brary and see my Perfumed Garden 

Protesting that he was not bored the least bit, he, 
perforce, followed her through the hallway toward 
the front of the house, where, coming suddenly to a 
massive door opening upon the street, she stopped 
long enough to shoot a bolt, turn a key, and affix a 
chain with a padlock. 

“Whatever makes you do all that?” he inquired, 
puzzled by the elaborate performance. 

“I don’t want our reading to be interrupted.” 

“But you promised to show me your Perfumed 
Garden first,” he reminded her. “How is it bound?” 

“In natural vellum. It is very white and soft.” She 
paused a moment when they came to the curtained 
entrance of the library. “I owe it to you to explain 
more fully about my precaution with the door,” she 
went on a trifle nervously—“The fact is that my hus¬ 
band—” 

“Husband!” Jeffrey repeated after her with a 
shudder. ‘I didn’t know you had a—live one.” 

“I haven’t, but the corpse is a very jealous creature. 


286 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


He was brought up in the Southwest, and was trained 
to use a gun with frightful precision—” 

“Good Lord!” 

“He once shot a servant of mine whom he thought 
too familiar with me. He is very jealous,” she re¬ 
peated. 

Jeffrey glanced back at the door. “Is he likely to 
come?” 

“He seldom comes any more,” she explained sadly, 
“but when he does, it is done with disgusting haste. . . 
Here is the item I wanted you to see. Just feel its 
satiny finish.” She unfolded it gently. 

But Jeffrey was thinking of the door and the jealous 
husband. 

“Now let me see your. . . Schopenhauer,” she de¬ 
manded, a little indignant at his seeming indifference. 

He fumbled at his pocket. “It is bound in very limp 
morocco,” he apologized—“I don’t like to show it to 
you now.” 

“Nonsense. Out with it. Perhaps I can make it a 
little firmer in my bindery, if you will let me,” she 
offered generously. Then, seeing his look of uneasy 
abstraction, “Are you ill?” 

“I think my voice is quite unequal to reading,” he 
confessed, still haunted by the vision of a western 
gun-man who might at any moment become an actual 
and terrifying reality. 

“Ah!” she exclaimed, laying possessing hands upon 
the Fourfold Root . 

But just then came a clicking sound from the direc¬ 
tion of the door. It was as if some one were trying 
the lock. 

Collingsworth seized his hat and coat with convul¬ 
sive eagerness. 

“This is no time to be reading philosophy, nor for 
toying with the covers of books. I make no pretense 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


287 


to bravery when I am in the house of a jealous hus¬ 
band. And while his lack of understanding may be 
distressing to you, it is highly probable that he might 
be more accutely discerning in regard to me. And 
that would be embarrassing. I prefer him ignorant. 
Moreover, I concede him every right in advance; and 
since I find my voice growing weaker every moment 
under the strain of an unhappy expectancy, I beg that 
you will excuse me and permit me to effect as rapid 
an exit from the rear of your home, as is consistent 
with—not grace, but—safety.”—During this speech 
Collingsworth was backing slowly but surely, down 
the corridor, past the bindery, to a door that opened 
upon an alley. “I regret that I was unable to inspect 
your Perfumed Garden more closely, madam; though 
I daresay it is very like many another book, slightly 
different in binding, but quite familiar and typical in 
content. The suggestion of fragrance was, however, 
quite appealing, and as I said, I regret that my trepida¬ 
tion made it impossible to turn a single page. But 
on the whole, I have learned much for which I can 
never thank you enough—Good-bye” 

“And it was only the postman putting letters in the 
box,” sobbed Mrs. Winfrey a few minutes later—“The 
cow r ard!” 

“Young man,” Collingsworth addressed himself 
seriously, as he began to breathe the breath of freedom 
once more—“you had a narrow escape from becoming 
as ridiculous a figure as Tucker at his worst. It is 
all very well, this talk of the fascination of triangles, 
but I have no taste for an angle by itself; I will either 
be two sides and two angles, or nothing. I daresay 
Tolstoi’s aunt was right when she advised him to seek 
adventures with experienced married ladies; but that 
was Europe where husbands shrug their shoulders, 


288 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


and this is America where they sling their guns and 
advertise you in the daily press. Certainly it is not 
worth the anxiety and possible mortification to one’s 
pride, unless there is a very real passion which may 
not be escaped. As to widows and independent young 
women of age—that is another matter. But you have 
permitted yourself to drift into situations requiring 
biological research where you were seeking to satisfy 
another kind of curiosity. You are a fool; a plain 
fool. Hereafter let women alone unless you are in 
love with them. Leave these vulgar intrigues to those 
notorious parsons who have affairs with the married 
members of the choirs, and confine yourself to good 
wine, fragrant tobacco and sound books.” 

To be sure, he admitted, there might come the 
Woman, in which case, certain revisions would have 
to be made. 

From all of which it will be seen that Mr. Col¬ 
lingsworth was still a very serious-minded young man, 
yet unable to enjoy a hearty laugh at the cosmic 
comedy, much less at his own curious antics. And it 
was observed, about this time, that a note of what 
some were pleased to call satire, other cynicism, and 
yet others, flippancy, crept into his lectures whenever 
he made reference to love or sex. Julian Wallace 
wondered why the attendance of women began to 
grow steadily less. 

( 4 ) 

It was during his third summer in Chicago that 
Fitzpatrick came. Having published a valuable mono¬ 
graph on some unfamiliar saphrophytes the year be¬ 
fore, the University had asked the Virginia professor 
to give a course of lectures during the summer quarter. 
Collingsworth was delighted to see his old friend once 
more, not alone because of the great debt of gratitude 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


289 


that he owed to him, or because he was a sort of 
father confessor, but also, and perhaps chiefly, because 
he was a link with his native state. For no Virginian, 
however much he may scorn the ignorance that has 
latterly fallen on the land of his birth, or deprecate 
her descent beneath the dominance of the vulgar 
classes that have risen to power within her borders 
since the civil war, ever loses the feeling that some¬ 
how her grassy hills are a little more beautiful, her 
stately old houses a little finer, and her history much 
more glorious than that of any other commonwealth 
in the Republic. 

Except that his hair was by now snow-white, Fitz¬ 
patrick had remained unchanged. “We don’t change 
very much where I live,” he remarked in reply to 
Jeffrey’s observations,—“You wouldn’t notice any 

difference at Wythe.Yes, Bias is still there; 

he now claims to have lived upwards of a hundred 
years. . . . Yost? he has just finished a course in law 

and is going into his father’s office.No, they 

have never invited Gross to hold another meeting at 
the college. I think Daniels realized that he was a 
mistake; and, anyway, Gross got into some kind of an 
affair with a woman and had to change his territory 
and denomination. But that was to be expected from 

a man of his type.I got quite well acquainted 

with your father last summer, Collingsworth; spent 
a delightful vacation on the farm instead of going to 
Europe. Mr. Collingsworth is a capital chess player, 
and a much more amiable man since he retired from 
the ministry.” 

“He wrote to me about it; your visits up the Creek 
gave him more pleasure than he has had for several 
years, I fancy,” said Jeffrey with a sigh. “Does he 
seem much older?” 

“A little shrunken, and his shoulders droop a bit; 




290 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


otherwise much the same, save, as I said, milder, 
quieter. The darkies love him. He is extraordinary 
kind and patient to them.” 

“And my mother?” 

“Very much feebler than she ought to be at her 
age. Worries about you a lot. You know,” he ex¬ 
claimed, drawing nearer,—“it’s a beastly shame for 
you to be in such a relation to your parents. Why 
don’t you go to see them?” 

“Father doesn’t want me. He said it was better 
for me to stay away.” 

“Nonsense! He didn’t mean it. He’s just afraid 
you’ll say something about socialism or free-thought; 
and meantime here you are growing more conservative 
every day, until finally you will be a greater moss- 
back than your father.” 

“Yes, I have lost most of my radicalism—nearly 
all in fact—but I still carry a red card, and am most 
emphatically not a Christian. The more I come to 
know myself, the less of a propagandist I become, 
and the less satisfactory to any movement. My read¬ 
ing of Nidtzsche and Butler, Thomas Hardy and 
Anatole France, has helped me; but that, together 
with some unfortunate experiences, has caused the 
women to stop coming to the lectures; and my love 
of Pater has caused some discontent among the men. 
I’m going to quit after next season. I can make 
enough at my writing and do more good. It’s the 
movements—the organizations—that I can’t stand. 
The people expect you to hold the same point of view 
all the time,—to repeat the same formulas. They hate 
to have you point out the follies of their own move¬ 
ment. They stifle magnanimity as much in one cult as 
in another. The free thinkers want to hear their side 
preached all the time just as much as the churches 
want theirs. It’s all idiocy. Still, I hold respect for 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


291 


the great thinkers among the socialists, and am not, 
as I said, a Christian/’ 

“No more am I,” answered Fitzpatrick. “I have 
great reverence for Jesus, but none for Christianity 
as an organization or a formulated creed. And I also 
have read Marx—a brilliant old fellow he was. But 
it would never occur to me to join an organization to 
uphold his ideas. I know how silly and how fatal 
an organization is to an idea. But this is beside the 
point. Why don’t you write and tell your father that 
you have given up socialism and come back to the 
church? A lie, of course, but we have to tell so many 
of those every day, that one more of Plato’s noble 
prevarications won’t hurt your chance for salvation.” 

“That does appeal to me, but I fear I couldn’t make 
it convincing enough to carry out; besides I’d have to 
join the church to prove it, and I just could not make 
a go of pretending to believe the Calvanistic faith. 

“Oh, any one would do; why not try my church, the 
Episcopal? Your grandfather was an Episcopalian 
before he married, and I fancy that his heart was there 
all along.” 

“Yes,” said Jeffrey, with a reminiscent smile. “Once 
in a while he used to sneak away to one of their ser¬ 
vices, and I remember his taking me sometimes. It 
spoiled my taste for other churches; there was some 
colour there. Then, too, I was conscious of my grand¬ 
father’s happiness as I sat by his side, and you know 
I loved him so much that his feelings were contagious 
to me, and I instinctively felt that I belonged there. 
Of course now I know that I couldn’t accept their 
creed any more than another. And yet—” he con¬ 
fessed a little doubtfully—” I go occasionally to hear 
a service at the Church of the Ascension—very high, 
and all that sort of thing, you know, and I like it; 
the beautiful ritual, the rich vestments, the incense...” 


292 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Ah!” cried Fitzpatrick, “that is just it. The old 
hereditary instinct begins to stir. For, after all, what 
does the belief matter? Religion is a dance, a drama, 
ritual, ecstacy;—a symbolization of life’s supreme mo¬ 
ments in a beautiful rite. Confound all intellectual 
formulas! What does it matter to your soul, spirit, 
imagination what the facts are about matter, or hell, 
or evolution? Those things are excellent toys for the 
exercise and amusement of one’s mind, but we need 
something else. Pay no attention to the miserable 
sermons. The preacher is more often than not a per¬ 
fect ass.” 

“I’ll never join another organization of any kind,” 
replied the other quite firmly. “But I may tell the 
‘noble lie’ you spoke of. Thanks for the suggestion.” 

“Excellent!” responded the old professor, rubbing 
his hands together in glee, “It will be a genuine act 
of Christianity.” 

With Julian Wallace, Fitzpatrick got on famously, 
appreciating the lawyer’s Epicurean taste in wine, 
and exchanging sly Pantagruelian stories with high 
relish. For Wallace took nothing so seriously as to 
interfere with fine living, and at his socialism was as 
ready to laugh as at the palpable absurdities of sex. 
An urbane catholicity was characteristic of the man’s 
outlook, and as an onlooker he liked to observe the 
passing show of tragi-comedy, not disdaining, now 
and then, to descend to the thick of the fray to crack 
a few heads, but always withdrawing' with a quiet 
chuckle. With such a man the old biologist felt quite 
at home, and he congratulated Collingsworth on his 
choice of friends.— 

“Just the kind of man you need to associate with, 
my friend; and I attribute your growing magnanimity 
more to this association than to your reading. And 
that reminds me of something. Ho, ho, ho! You 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


293 


know your father has always despised the Methodists. 
Well, an old Methodist minister,—a friend of mine 
by the way, and quite a student of the classics—was 
spending the summer near my home, and I took him 
to Mr. Collingsworth’s one day and introduced him as 
a friend of mine and a famous chess player. And 
what with playing games, and talking Latin the two 
old rogues fell quite in love with one another. But 
you should have seen your father’s face when he found 
out! There is nothing like contact to enable one to see 
exceptions.” 

“There are some decent people in all organizations,” 
Jeffrey admitted, “but in a realistic age it isn’t proper 
to make mention of them.” 

For a lark, they took Fitzpatrick to Andrini’s. If 
possible, there had gathered about the long tables a 
more miscellaneous and disputative assembly than 
usual, and Wallace, with true dramatic instinct, took 
good care to set them at logger heads without delay. 

“A rather weak imitation of some of the cafes in 
the Latin quarter -of Paris,” remarked the gentleman 
for whom these pains had been taken, “but it is far 
better than our typical American restaurant life; and 
I see you have some negroes present,” he added with 
a start of surprise. 

“Ah yes,” said Wallace, elated by this turn of events, 
“and your young pupil there,”—nodding in Jeffrey’s 
direction,—“takes great delight in bringing them to our 
tables. Usually he sits as near them as possible. Not 
long since I asked him to provide a speaker for a 
conservative club to; which I happen to belong, and 
do you know that he brought along a particularly 
black negro, much to the disgust of the members!” 

“I’ll venture it is not done from any natural im¬ 
pulse,” replied Fitzpatrick draining his glass of claret 


294 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


and reaching for the bottle. “I smell a theory back 
of everything he does.” 

“Correct,”’ admitted the young man, “You will re¬ 
call, my friend, that when you asked me to say a few 
words on that occasion, I repeatedly emphasized the 
fact of my Southern origin, and, in particular, that I 
am a Virginian and the descendant of a family of 
Confederates. What I want these people to know,” 
he continued, turning to Fitzpatrick, “is that we who 
believed in slavery are more tolerant than they who 
wanted to make negroes their social equals. It was 
harder for those men to sit at the table with a negro 
poet than it would have been for my father—by far.” 
He laughed like a mischievous small boy. “And think,” 
he went on, “of the thousands of young Northerners 
who died in the faith that their blood was shed for 
equality! What would they say of their descendents, 
if they could speak from the grave?” 

“They did not fight for negro equality,” interrupted 
a rather portentous person across the table,—“They 
fought to preserve the Union.” 

“Yes,” Wallace remarked, “to preserve the union of 
manufacturers from competition with a highly success¬ 
ful form of slavery.” 

“And to democratize slavery so as to include white 
men.” Fitzpatrick put in. 

“It is the tradesman’s method for elevating the 
Host,”— said Jeffrey, “but it does not prevent the 
Springfield Yankees from holding a delightful lynch¬ 
ing party.” 

“Speaking of Springfield,”’ commented the lawyer, 
now weary of the Civil War discussion, “I saw our 
friend Bertram Tucker there a few days ago. I went 
down on an important case, and a client of mine was 
driving me out to his home in the suburbs, when he 
ran out of gasoline and turned into a garage; and 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


295 


who should come out to wait on us but Tucker. I 
said—‘Tucker, what are you doing here? I thought 
you were in Arkansas with your colony’.” 

“ ‘That’s all done for,’ ” he said. T took an Armenian 
fellow in with me and in six months he beat me out 
of colony, money and everything. Then when I tried 
to remonstrate with him, he hit me over the head with 
an unmentionable vessel.’ Tucker said to me that for 
once he forgot his self-control and smashed the Arme¬ 
nian pretty badly; then, ashamed of himself, he gave 
up everything and left. Pouring gasoline was better 
than co-operation.” 

“Poor old Tucker, he deserved a better fate. He’s 
too idealistic for this sorry world,” remarked Jeffrey, 
who was genuinely grieved by this recital. 

“See that loving couple in the corner, Professor.” 
Wallace indicated with a nod of his head an affec¬ 
tionate pair, who, heedless of the company, were un¬ 
able to resist the temptation of a kiss. “They’re too 
Jost in one another to mind our glances. How beauti¬ 
ful it is to see the human animal return to the down¬ 
rightness of the birds, without the wicked inhibitions 
of a painful self-consciousness. Unfortunately though, 
it may lead afterwards to a public scandal.” 

“We don’t have such scandalous situations in the 
South,” Jeffrey put in, annoyed as much by the scene 
as by Wallace’s having pointed it out to his old friend. 

“What’s that? We don’t have scandals in the 
South?” shouted Fitzpatrick, “We have just as much 
scandal there as anywhere, different, because the sur¬ 
roundings are different. Have you forgotten your 
classics, sir? The world is the same everywhere, and 
in all times. Did not Martial celebrate the scandals 
of Chione and of Deiphobus? Did not Juvenal adver¬ 
tise the shame of noble Viento’s lady, Hippia? And 
have not Ovid and Petronius made notorious the cuck- 


296 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


oldery of the ancient world? No scandal indeed! Why, 
we have had it as near Wythe as Ripple Ford within 
a year. Do you remember Mrs. Wethermore?” 

“Mrs. Wethermore?” cried Collingsworth, blushing 
furiously. 

“Yes, the widow of one of the former members of 
our faculty. She had what is called an affair with a 
travelling salesman, and finally was forced to leave 
the village. To his credit, the man came and rescued 
her, and they are now living together near Lynch¬ 
burg, I believe. It seems that she had been giving 
this man her favors for a number of years, off and on.” 

So that w*as the woman for the sake of shielding 
whose delicate reputation he had sacrificed his career 
at Wythe, made his parents suffer the sharp agony 
of humiliation, and had himself undergone a prema¬ 
ture exile! All along she had been using him as a 
mere substitute for an absent lover. Well, now that 
her name was bandied about, he could at least un¬ 
burden himself to his friends without the guilty sense 
of a betrayer. In a few short sentences, pregnant with 
self-reproach, he unfolded his downfall. 

“Aha! So that was what was back of your drunken 
episode. I thought at the time that you were not the 
person to seek inebriety for its own sake. You see,” 
Fitzpatrick continued, turning to Wallace, “our young 
friend here can’t even drink, save for some puny 
principle or fantastic theory; can’t even drink,” he 
repeated, caressing with reverent fingers the dark 
bottle that sat before him. “I’ll venture now that 
even the affair with the woman was prompted by some 
abstraction. You deserved to be fired, Collingsworth, 
you deserved it, sir. You are unworthy of a good 
bottle of brandy. The theory of gallantry is very 
pretty within limits—limits of common sense. It 
reminds me, however, of an uncle of mine—” And 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


297 


he once more related with the same gusto as in other 
days, his favorite story of the blundering relative who 
killed his only child.” 

By this time, through the usual process of elimina¬ 
tion, the company at Andrini’s basement had been 
reduced to the more capable consumers of wine and 
the more insistent votaries of Momus and high talk. 
Martinis, Manhattans, Gibsons, silver fizzes, sloe-gin 
sours, absinthe frappes, good punch and thin claret 
had contributed to create the nearest approach to a 
tolerable democracy that may be realized on this happy 
planet; and under its ephemeral spell, sweet and harm¬ 
less blasphemies rolled off the thickening tongues of 
men and maidens only to make a chanted sound like 
that of the murmur of a litany. Soft curses fell upon 
nationalism and its flags; round and modulated oaths 
against the tyranny of the government and the 
sycophantic injustice of the courts; pious vitupera¬ 
tion was gracefully flung at the steeples of the church; 
and the breath of malediction went out upon all 
the gods from Olympus to Sinai. It was a beautiful 
moment, and the old teacher, more tolerant than ever 
under the mellowing influence of good liquor, smiled 
benignly upon the scene. It was not until some un¬ 
gracious lout, who had but scurvily and with niggard 
economy paid his tribute to the cups, began to prate 
of a future time—after science should have done its 
work—when, for the sake of efficiency, men would 
swallow tablets as a puny substitute for food, that his 
magnanimity deserted him. In righteous wrath he 
rose unsteadily from his seat—. 

“Sirs, I have listened in all charity to a multitude 
of heresies; I have heard our human institutions con¬ 
demned, and our gods reviled upon their thrones; I 
have heard patriotism denounced in excellent John¬ 
sonese as the last resort of scoundrels. I have been 


298 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


unmoved and even amused; for all these things are 
but vain abstractions that may change within an hour. 
But I’m damned if I am going to sit in this company 
and harken to the ultimate blasphemy, this prophesy 
of evil, this profanation of the kitchen. The waiting 
palate against whose noble arches wine-red berries 
and succulent grapes, and the tender flesh of the wild 
red deer may soon be pressed by an eager tongue; 
the sensitive nostrils, quick to note the rising fragrance 
of many a right royal dish, and the rich bouquet of 
scented wine; against these altars no sacrilege will I 
hear. For Ceres and Dionysos, and the divinities of 
the hearth, and the gentle spirit that presides over the 
oven, are sacred realities before whom every head 
must bow in grateful reverence. I care not for the¬ 
ories of government spun out by knaves; the fate of 
democracy moves me not. One form of government 
is as good or bad as another, and every change is for 
the worse. The violent death of a senator, a fat and 
unctuous politician who sweats to maintain the rights 
of average mediocrity, is to me no more than the ac¬ 
cidental crushing of an aphis. It is nothing, worse 
than nothing. Nor do I pay tribute to the hypothet¬ 
ical, save as to an amusing toy. But to the senses 
and the appetites, and to the sovereign arts that do 
them homage, I bend the knee in happy appeciation. 
Nay, when I think of these things—of bread and 
wine—I become assured that there is in this universe 
a great and awful Presence, a mystic divinity in Per¬ 
son ; and I know that when our Lord partook of these 
elements on that last evening he was revealing the 
path of initiation to the great miracle of at-one-ment. 
What the Lord has made sacred, let no man revile.” 
He sank back with an almost beatific smile. 

Then they all arose, and, after a final toast and song, 
came forward and embraced the old man with manv 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


299 


tokens of affection. Even Jacobs seemed to wear 
a halo of good cheer. Trueman forgot to make his 
shocking order, and Canby went home to write a poem. 

In a few weeks the term at the University was 
ended, and Fitzpatrick, who had proved a great suc¬ 
cess, took his leave. 

“Forget any foolish thing I may have said in a mo¬ 
ment of excess,” he remarked as he was about to 
enter his train. “I spend most of my days in an 
unhealthy academic atmosphere of modern Puritanism, 
so that when I escape I am a weakling, unable to 
sustain good drink in the manner proper to a gentle¬ 
man. . . . And go ahead as you are—evolve back¬ 
wards to your excellent grandsire. Live and drink— 
with moderation—, and when you come back to Vir¬ 
ginia, I will be your neighbor. For I shall retire next 
year and go to live at Mill Creek. Goodbye. Nil 
admirari ,—and pax vobiscnm.” 


XXXIII 


T HE ragman was at the back door, and Mary 
Gregg, with characteristic thoroughness, was 
intent upon ridding the house of its every bit 
of disused clothing. Already she had ransacked her 
protesting brother’s wardrobe and dragged forth two 
dingy suits and an ancient over-coat; just now she 
was attacking Raymond Hughley. 

“I’m sure you’ve a lot of things that are of no pos¬ 
sible use to you. Just let me look at your closet. My, 
but you bachelors are a caution!” 

Gregg, from the doorway, winked sympathetically 
at his friend and departed. 

“Here are three pairs of dusty trousers that no 
self-respecting man should be allowed to appear in— 
ever,” she announced, tossing them out into the room. 

“They are good enough for working about the house 
in,” Hughley excused himself weakly. 

“No!”—emphatically. “And whoever could wear 
this coat with such a rent as that?”—holding out a 
blue serge garment critically. 9 

“I thought it might be mended some time.” 

“Not that. You’d better go through the pockets of 
these things to see that you don’t lose a fortune,” she 
remarked caustically, continuing the search. 

“Nothing in the pants anyway,” said Hughley, half 
regretfully laying them aside. “But here is a pencil 
stub, an old letter from a teacher’s agency, and—by 
Jove! an old notebook of mine. I wondered what had 
become of that.” 

“Well,” announced Miss Gregg with one last linger¬ 
ing look at the now renovated closet, “I guess that is 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


301 


everything. Wait just a moment and I will bring you 
the fortune/’ 

“Hmp!” grunted the young man, beginning to turn 
the leaves of the recovered memorandum. 

In a few moments she was back again. “For two 
coats, three vests and four pairs of trousers,—seventy- 
five cents!” She held up the hwo coins in triumph. 
“I really should ask a commission, but I shan’t.” 

“See here!” exclaimed Hughely,—“I find something 
that I forgot to mention to you ages ago—let’s see— 
why it’s nearly three years. You get your Ph. D. this 
spring, don’t you?. . . I thought so. You know Col¬ 
lingsworth ?” 

“Certainly,—your radical young classmate who lec¬ 
tures down-town. He’s been here a number of times; 
what of him?” 

“Why just this: when he first came up here he told 
me of seeing some fair goddess on the train. He got 
her initials—H. B. S.—and, from what he said, was 
quite smitten. I told him I w r ould ask your help in 
locating her; but I guess he’s forgotten all about it— 
never said anything more. Fact is, we’re both so busy 
that we haven’t seen much of each other of late. Here’s 
the description.” He read the notes in mock derision. 

“. . . . No, it doesn’t say much for a fact. But, 
you bad boy, to have forgotten such a budding rom¬ 
ance ! It’s a dirty shame; and there he had been keep¬ 
ing her in his heart for months. You are incorrigible,” 
she accused, “but I’ll try to atone for it. I’ll bet I 
can find out—if it was one of those three, I can, at 
any rate. But has he fallen in love with someone else 
in the meantime?” 

“Not unless it has been during the last four or five 
months,” answered Hughley, “But the girl may have 
married and be the mother of twins by this, you know.” 


302 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“Pessimist! It interests me. Here’s your money... 
Let you know later.” 

“Thanks for the cleaning, J Mary; at least it has 
restored my notebook.” 

“And has given me a Sherlock Holmes mystery to 
unravel,” she called out over her shoulder. 

( 2 ) 

“Hello! I see you have something to tell me,” 
prophesied the teacher, as Miss Gregg burst into his 
office at the Dickenson School on the following Tues¬ 
day. 

“I didn’t get around to it until yesterday,” she an¬ 
swered, dropping into a chair, “but I have some re¬ 
sults. She is Helen Buell Sherwood. She studied at 
the University one year, went to New York on some 
research work for Vincent, and is back now, living 
on the North Side with her aunt.” 

“I should say that you have done pretty quick 
work,” he hazarded. 

“But I should have known in the first place, just as 
soon as I saw her name among the three. I’ve met 
her, and I don’t blame your friend one bit for falling 
in love with her; she’s a darling.” 

“Oh yes, I daresay. Well, perhaps you can give me 
a more accurate account of what she is like. How 
did you find out at last?” 

“Doctor Vincent let me look through his files, and 
from even the brief description I gave, he placed her 
at once. She did a lot of research work |for him on 
some municipal affairs. What is she like? Well—she 
is the kind that makes a man ask why in the world 
she would ever choose a career. Do you know what 
I mean? They would never ask me that; they just 
look at me and then think how fitting it is that I am 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


303 


a teacher,”—with a resigned shrug of her shoulders. 

“Oh, I say now!” interrupted Hughely, who really 
did not know what to say. 

“No,” she cautioned, holding up a finger of warn¬ 
ing, “don’t lie.and then she is one of these 

rare women who wear the golden key of scholarship 
without being either ugly or stupid. She doesn’t wear 
hers, by the way; and she refused, for all the urging, 
to go on for a Ph. D. She isn’t going to teach, and 
instead of studying in the class room, she goes to 
New York or Europe, and now and then returns with 
several hundred pages of notes for somebody’s study 
of municipal government.” 

“Why doesn’t she publish them herself?” inquired 
the teacher, who was secretly doing a book on educa¬ 
tion. 

“Her ambition doesn’t seem to lie in that direction. 
She just wants to be doing something useful. Her 
father and mother are dead, and she has a lot of 
money, they say, so she feels that it is necessary (to 
make some sort of return to society for a good educa¬ 
tion and the luxuries. But what puzzles me now is 
to know how to bring her and Jeffrey Collingsworth 
together.” 

“Why bother about it? They may both be engaged 
now. She has undoubtedly forgotten the incident, if 
she ever thought about it at all; and he would prob¬ 
ably laugh if I mentioned it to him.” 

“I could invite them to the house for dinner some 
evening,” she continued, ignoring the other,—“I think 
I could find an excuse for that. But, no, that would 
be too obvious. First thing I shall call, on the pretext 
that I want to know something about the data she 
has provided for Trenton’s new book —The Occupa¬ 
tions of Women. Then I will find a way to take her to 


304 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


one of Mr. Collingsworth’s lectures. I want to hear 
what he is like on the platform, anyway. 

“It seems to me that you are a very determined 
matchmaker,” remarked Hughley. “I didn’t know that 
you went in for that sort of thing.” 

“I never get a chance, Raymond,” I she countered. 
“You and Alvin are so slow. Besides, every woman is 
something of a gamester in such matters, and it isn’t 
so dull as teaching.” 

It is funny, thought Hughley, when she had gone, 
that I never noticed how attractive Mary Gregg is. 
So modest, too. Confound it, when Alvin advances 

my salary, I may.But I wonder if she would 

listen to me? 

( 3 ) 

The audience had been small. ... no more than 
seven hundred people. The gallery had been empty, 
and not more than a score were in the balconies. 
Moreover, enthusiasm had been lacking, and the ap¬ 
plause had been\ but occasional and half-hearted. 
These people did not care very much for literary dis¬ 
cussions when they were without an iconoclastic sting. 
And Collingsworth had been trying to tell them that 
the anti-Victorian sentiment was apt to be exag¬ 
gerated ; that some of the bravest thinking, some of 
the most beautiful as well as virile writing in the 
world had been done in Victorian England. To this 
end, hu had cited Pater, Hardy, Butler, Swinburne, 
Dickens, Rosetti, Disraeli, Wilde and Arthur Machen, 
as well as Darwin and Huxley. He had conceded 
the general tone of dreariness, primness, Puritanism; 
and had dismissed Tennyson, Browning and Glad¬ 
stone with a gesture of disdain. But of all the Vic¬ 
torians his audiences had applauded only the scien¬ 
tists. ' It made him begin to doubt the validity of 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


305 


science. He was glad now that there were only three 
months more. Then he would be free to write non¬ 
sense, and read as much as he liked. Occasionally he 
would do something serious, such as !an article on 
sociology, he thought, as he put on the light spring 
overcoat in the dressing room. Perhaps he would be 
keener about helping to advance humanity when he 
should no longer be 'a professing humanist, forced 
to meet so many stupid humans. He adjusted the 
silk scarf about his neck. 

“Beastly cold, this March weather,” he remarked 
to an attendant. “I’d like to live, ’where the winter 
can break up decently and have done with it.” He 
walked slowly down, the side exit that led into the 
foyer. 

Of late he had made a practice of lingering in the 
little dressing room at the back of the stage until 
he was quite sure of meeting no one at the entrance. 
Only Wallace or Kupmeyer could find him, and the 
latter had about given him up. 

“The devil” he whispered as he came suddenly to 
the foyer, “Some women! I suppose they will want 
a reading list, or to ask what spritual significance 
there is in Salome, or whether I wasn’t too flippant 
about Browning, or what were the facts about Dis¬ 
raeli’s love affairs.” Outwardly he managed,an anti¬ 
cipatory smile. Just then the two women who had 
been the cause of this silent fury turned, and he recog¬ 
nized Mary Gregg. Restored at once to an amiable 
mood, he sprang forward— 

“Oh, I am surprised! I’ve never seen you here be¬ 
fore. Were you in my audience today? Thank you 
so much for coming. Where are Alvin and Ray?”— 
His happiness was quite evident. 

“I think you have seen, but not met my friend, Miss 
Sherwood, Mr. Collingsworth.” 



306 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


As lie bowed the acknowledgment, he noticed this 
lady’s face for the first time—since. 

“Oh, why—I believe I have met,—or at least seen 

you before; certainly, 1 remember now.” And, 

as the memory returned, his face, for some unexplain¬ 
able reason, became quite red. 

“Really!—where was it, I wonder?” she inquired, a 
little puzzled. “I thought, during your lecture—parts 
of which, by the way, I enjoyed very much—that your 
face was familiar; but I’m curious to know where we 
could have met.” 

“I have never forgotten,” confessed Jeffrey. “It 
was one spring day about three years ago, when I 
was coming from Argyle on my first trip to Chicago. 
I got up to leave the train several miles before we 
reached the depot, and you were good enough to 
enlighten me.” 

“Of course; it comes back to me now.” She laughed 
merrily—“And you were rude enough to comment 
on Chicago’s smells!”/ 

“It was horrid of me, but I don’t notice them now; 
my senses are too thoroughly dulled. But I am de¬ 
lighted to see you again.Won’t you two come 

with me to the Annex, for tea?” he invited som’ewhat 
awkwardly. 

“That would be lovely,” agreed Mary Gregg with 
instant enthusiasm, “but afterwards you are both to 
come with me out to the flat—it is an acceptable con¬ 
dition?—, for Ray will be expecting us. Alvin is away 
for the week end, and won’t be back till late. We’ll 
have Welsh Rarebit and beer, Mr. Collingsworth,” 
she added by ( way of additional temptation. 

For Jeffrey the affair was not altogether a success. 
Somehow he could not say the things he wanted to 
say, and he blushed at almost every remark that he 
made. “Why is it,” he kept wondering, “that I can’t 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


307 


act like a grown-up man?” He had, by this, grown 
very accustomed to such encounters, and felt quite a 
man-of-the world; but just now he couldn’t think of a 
thing—that could be ^aid aloud. If he; could have 
given himself free range, he thought, he would have 
made some such speech as this:— 

“So, Helen Sherwood—you who were the girl of my 
dreams for a season, and are no whit the less lovely 
for the intervening time, nor for the actuality—, here 
you are sitting opposite me within the reach of my 
hand; and yet, somehow, with the lapse of the brief 
seasons, my heart does not yearn as it did, nor come 
near to that ineluctable bliss that I had fancied it 
would feel in your gracious presence. Still, I am 
right glad that you are neither Simpson, nor yet 
Smith, and that you are clad in a simple crepe-de¬ 
chine waist that permits me to see the white loveli¬ 
ness of your adorable neck. And while I thought, 
a second since, that time had most unkindly erased 
your image and encased my soul in hardness against 
the magic of your voice, I am now become less sure of 
that sad fate. In fact, I think, now, as then, that you 
are the most delicious, and down-right human being in 
all the world. True, your teeth, I plainly see, are not 
pearls, but honest, generous and capable—teeth; and 
neither are your lips like rubies, for they bear no stain 
to be erased by the vulgar napkins of a hostelry, and 
have none of the fiery coldness of a jewel to be set in 
silver; nor is your throat like that of a swan, for that 
would be all too slender and serpentine and feathery: 
For all these things I thank God. But your voice 
is like music, and there are blossoms on your 
cheeks very like the arbutus when it comes in spring, 
and as natural; and your eyes, while not pools of any¬ 
thing, speak volumes of forth-right honesty. I sus¬ 
pect that I love you already!” 


308 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Aloud he was saying: 

“Thanks, I will have another cake.how long 

are you going to remain in Chicago this time, Miss 
Sherwood?” 

“Probably a year, probably forever, unless there is 
something more to be done outside. Just now I am 
studying the Chicago milk supply, and that may take 
ages.” 

“Whatever are you going to do with the dairies?” 
he asked in some surprise. 

“Get rid of most of them,” she returned with de¬ 
termination. “You would be amazed to know of the 
filth that exists about the dairies and milk depots in 
this city. They are a source of untold disease—flies, 
and stench—ugh! I hope that when my report goes in 
conditions will change. But I do feel sorry for some 
of them. One man out on the southwest side, who 
has a little dairy barn, told me only yesterday that if 
the things that I urged were required, he would be 
ruined. His two children and a nephew are his only 
assistants,—his wife is bed-ridden. But his place is 
simply hopeless; a single building, one room for the 
milk-vats and separators, and the adjoining one— 
quite large—is for the cows. Overhead the family 
lives, all five of them—and there are no screens. It 
will have to go, I am afraid, for he hasn’t the money 
to make a single improvement.” 

“What a work for a woman to be doing!” he ejac¬ 
ulated. 

“It is splendid, I think,” cried Mary Gregg—” and if 
we waited for the men, nothing would be done. Cer¬ 
tainly the politicians are not going to attack it; they 
would let us all die of the plague.” 

“But it is the profit system that causes these con¬ 
ditions,” Jeffrey objected. “That is where we must 
strike to cure these things. If we once get rid of the 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


309 


cause, the superficial effects will take care of them¬ 
selves.” 

“It is a great deal nicer to attack a principle in a 
comfortable theatre, than to strike at a condition in a 
stable; I know (that,” replied Miss Sherwood, with 
some energy. “I’d rather do it myself, and I don’t 
deny its usefulness,” she added, fearing that she had 
spoken too bluntly. “What the radicals are doing is 
all very well for a life-work,\but meantime, if some 
of the temporary symptoms are not taken care of, 
the race will perish of infantile paralysis, typhoid and 
tuberculosis.” 

“I daresay you are quite right,” he admitted, though 
in his heart he resented the fact of her having to go 
into such filthy places. 

“If it were just the well-to-do, and the business 
men who (had to die as a result of this condition, I 
shouldn’t turn a hand; but it’s the helpless little tots 
of the poor who can’t afford the certified milk,; that 
move me.” 

“I wish you would take me on one of your inves¬ 
tigating trips,” Collingsworth plead, having had a 
sudden flash of inspiration. 

“They’re not pleasure jaunts,” she warned doubt¬ 
fully, “but if you would be interested, I should be glad 
to have you come along. Tuesday I shall be visiting 
a number of places on the West Side—some of the 
very worst, I’m told. Would you \care to join me 
then ?” 

“Most assuredly,” he responded with a zest not born 
of the remotest interest in pure milk. 

“Poor old Ray will wonder what in the world has 
become of us,” said Mary Gregg, glancing at her 
watch and rising from the table, “We must run along.” 

Mary was jubilant, and when, after a long session 


310 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


of nonsense and much laughter, her guests had de¬ 
parted—Collingsworth made happy by having the 
privilege of seeing Helen Sherwood to the station—, 
she and Hughley ran up the steps to their apartments, 
she could not refrain from clapping her hands— 

“Aren’t they both just dear?” 

“He looked as though he would like to eat her, but 
I can’t say that she showed any desire to be a break¬ 
fast food,” Hughley remarked. “I should say that 
they are woefully unsuited for each other. Collings¬ 
worth is all for the general the abstract, the theoret¬ 
ical. She is concrete, practical; she is more logical 
than he is.” 

“But you have been telling me how radical hei is, 
and I didn’t find him a bit like that today. v He was 
quite ^detached, balanced and impersonal—too much 
so if anything—, and he defended Victorian literature 
as no radical would ever think of doing. But he 
seemed sad and down-cast about something. He 
sounded as if he were reading his lecture and was 
tired.” « 

“Did you ever hear of how Jonah went to Ninevah 
and told the people that they were going to be de¬ 
stroyed ; and then, when they weren’t, as he had 
expected, was grievously disappointed? Well, that’s 
4 Collingsworth:—he went out to reform the world in a 
whirlwind of fire, and because things didn’t happen, 
he’s through with it.” 

“Your analogy is poor, even if that were the whole 
of Jonah’s story. Here is what I think has happened: 
Your friend paints, in his mind, pictures of an ideal 
world; then, when he goes out, he expects to find 
them hanging in the galleries. Instead he discovers 
ugliness everywhere, and then reproaches himself with 
the bad work. He is too introspective and too impa- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


311 


tient. Why I think they’re just suited to each other 
because they are so different.” 

“She is interested in her work, not men.” 

“That may come later,” said Mary Gregg, deter¬ 
mined to look on the brighter side of a romance in 
which she was now taking a very personal interest. 
“But I was afraid that she would say some of the 
terribly frank things she is credited with, and shrivel 
poor Mr. Collingsworth’s soul. You know, when she 
first met Dr. Potter out at the University, she was 
talking along casually about something, when sud¬ 
denly she noticed his cravat, and without thinking 
said—‘What an awful tie!’ then both she and Potter 
blushed furiously.” 

“Good Heavens! Is she like that?” 

V. 

“She is absolutely spontaneous. When she feels a 
thing, she says it, come what may. And yet, on the 

other hand, she thinks with deliberation.Well, 

I’ve done what I could to repair your carelessness, 
Ray, and now I think I’ll go to bed.” 



XXXIV 


( 1 ) 

B ACK at her home town in Indiana the people had 
thought, when the girl was in her teens, that 
Helen Sherwood was destined to be a breaker of 
hearts. Not that she had been given to more thon nor¬ 
mal flirtations, or was too frivolous; but there had been 
that in the dancing eyes, as in the ripples of mis¬ 
chievous laughter, which caused wise old men to shake 
their heads regretfully and the old women to sigh as 
they looked upon their sons or grandsons: “She’d make 
a fine match,” they would often say, “but I’m thinkin’ 
she’ll hear ’em all before she ever decides. She don’t 
seem settled like. It’s a pity her pore mother was 
took away before the 'child quit wearing her short 

skirts.No, no man, even if he is as go6d as the 

old Jedge, is ever fitten to look after a girl.” 

And she had listened to them all, or nearly all, be¬ 
fore she was well out of high school. Most of these 
proposals came from young hearts, unsullied by any 
ulterior motive and filled to the overflowing with the 
palpitant urge of a first romance; a few—from the 
older men—sprang from the added factor of Judge 
Sherwood’s reputed wealth. She laughed at them all. 

Then she had gone to Oberlin and come in contact, 
through books, with the serious fact of social prob¬ 
lems, the very existence of which she had never 
dreamed, and, through the young women she met, 
with the notion that a woman must have a more pur¬ 
posive career than that of comforter to a petulant 
husband. To these ideas she made but little response 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


313 


until, at the beginning of her junior year, the death 
of her father brought her face to face with the over¬ 
whelming actuality of a multitude of responsibilities. 
On return to college she determined to address her¬ 
self no longer to a merely general curriculum that 
might do well enough as a prelude to a life of ease, 
but to become familiar with the sources of wealth, 
the conduct of business, and the backgrounds of poli¬ 
tics. She wanted to know why she had wealth, how to 
maintain it, and what she might, with some high pur¬ 
pose in mind, do with it. 

Thus it came about that with this access of zeal 
she not only made Phi Beta Kappa, but went out with 
the distinction of being one of the most thorough 
students of applied economy the college had known. 

At the University of 'Chicago, after one year of 
graduate work, she had been advised to take an ad¬ 
vanced degree and promised a place on the faculty, 
but this she had scorned as an idle and unadven¬ 
turous life, lending itself Jtoo easily to a secluded 
narrowness, and, finally, begetting the cunning cau¬ 
tion of unworthy fear. Universities, like churches, 
she saw, were controlled, in the last analysis, by 
average stupidity. And her father, an undogmatic 
man in all things, had taught her the wisdom of 
freedom. “Two heads may at times be better than 
one, but three heads make insanity/’ he was fond of 
saying; and he had kept as clear of parties as he did 
of churches or mobs. So, instead of dwelling with 
the theories of things, she had gone out on special er¬ 
rands of fact-gathering for certain scholars; partly 
because of a feeling of definite social obligation, and 
partly for the adventure with life. And to all appear¬ 
ances she was content with this state of things; so 
content that on her occasional visits to southeast 
Indiana, her father’s onetime partner, old Samuel 


314 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Phillips, who was now a sort of agent for her estates, 
would scold her by the hour. 

“Just fancy! A pretty girl like you gadding around 
the slums of God knows what city, inspecting the 
dirty babies of these umph foreigners (Mr. Phillips 
suppressed the stronger expletive in the presence of 
ladies), and looking after their drains, and collecting 
figures on municipal graft. Bah! I wish I were a 
younger man.” 

To which Helen would reply, in bantering tones, 
that perhaps, when she had done all that she could 
of her duty as an unrecognized citizen of the Repub¬ 
lic, she might consent to settle down to the business 
of respectable wifehood. It would be, she urged, a 
quiet prelude to a peaceful death. 

The actual experiences as an investigator of muni¬ 
cipal affairs had strengthened, in tw r o ways, the deter¬ 
mination to go on with her work; the corruption that 
was daily uncovered convinced her that business in¬ 
terests dominated both politics and politicians; the 
politicians, from the alderman to the senators, were 
either ignorant near-imbeciles, vulgar and stupid, or 
equally vulgar knaves. They were, to her mind, the 
results of a man-made government, and the indiffer¬ 
ence of gentlemen who washed their hands 'of such 
things. A woman was needed to protect the interests 
of the coming generation against such devastating 
greed and stupidity. In the second place, the antics 
of certain feminists, and of sentimental women in 
politics who were trying to meddle with reforms in 
such a manner as to make an informed woman blush 
for her sex, caused her to feel that it was high time 
for women with common sense and humor to take a 
hand in affairs, if for no other purpose than to show 
that all women are not fools. To this end she went 
about such work as she had to do without the flare of 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


315 


publicity; and never, even when engaged in unearth¬ 
ing the most noisome scandal, consented to an inter¬ 
view. 

It made life exciting, some of these ventures of hers, 
and the sense of opposition turned an otherwise dull 
and colorless task into something of a lark. Then 
there were the men; more than half of the politicians 
she was forced to meet, moved to sudden passion by 
her charms, came to a conclusion, begotten of their 
desires, that a woman in public is a public woman, 
and endeavored to act as, under the circumstances, 
such men act. They regretted it instantly, and she 
went away amused. “What ridiculous lobsters poli¬ 
ticians are!” she would comment. 

Nevertheless, on certain spring days, despite the 
serious nature of her self-appointed tasks, Helen would 
sigh, and share the restlessness of the whole organic 
world—that is to say, that part of it which is not 
overcome by aenemia and crippled with that envious 
incapacity which is known among humans by the 
name of Puritanism. Under the spell of discontent 
Helen the Woman would brush aside Miss Sherwood 
the Civic Reformer, and wonder if in the whole world 
there were a man with the brains and decency of her 
father, who didn’t have a paunch. 

Mrs. Montgomery, surprising her niece in these 
moods, would endeavor, at such times, to introduce 
“a very, very nice young man, my dear, and so intel¬ 
ligent. Not that I would think for a moment of mar¬ 
riage, or of interferring with your work, but.” 

Invariably Helen found these nice young men 
extremely dull and either very serious, or too like the 
cover designs of a summer magazine. And to avoid 
some of the patently well-arranged social designs on 
the part of her aunt, she had taken a little apartment 



316 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


overlooking the north end of Lincoln Park; it was 
both a workshop and a refuge. 

Not that her aunt was a nuisance, she- would ex¬ 
plain—for Mrs. Montgomery was one of those young 
old ladies who flutter about in the constant endeavor 
to keep abreast of the latest idea, and to smile benignly 
upon the most extreme vagary of modern life—, but 
that the old dear was too determined that her niece 
should not utterly waste herself upon the sterile altars 
of civic righteousness. 

( 2 ) 

“Aren’t you going to take any kind of a vacation, 
Helen dear?” her aunt questioned one mid-summer 
day, when even the cool proximity of the lake was 
unavailing against the terrific heat. “I thought that 
milk investigation would end weeks ago, especially 
since you have such an enthusiastic assistant.” 

Perhaps it was the weather or some passing reflec¬ 
tion, but it seemed to Mrs. Montgomery that a faint 
increase of color was perceptible on Helen’s cheek. 

“I am most through, Auntie, but you see, there are 
the reports to write, and it may take several weeks,” 
she replied, stirring her iced-tea very thoughtfully. 

“It didn’t seem to me that Mr. Collingsworth was 
exactly the kind of a man who would enjoy inspecting 
milk depots and the like—at least that was the im¬ 
pression I got from the two or three times he has been 
here. I liked him though, such old fashioned manners, 
and quaint expressions---very unlike most young 
people. Too bad he is a lecturer.” 

Helen’s aunt was a very sensible woman in most re¬ 
spects, and while she might enjoy hearing what the 
speaker said about Moliere or Yeats, she entertained 
for his profession, as for his person, a profound dis- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


317 


trust, born of the knowledge that oratory and orators 
are alike vulgar. Surprised as well as disappointed 
when, she found that her niece’s young friend was 
engaged in such business, she had been startled on 
the occasion when, in response to her questions, he 
had voiced her own thoughts by adding to his declara¬ 
tion— 

“A very low and sorry trade, madame; a prostitu¬ 
tion of fine phraseology and clear thinking to the mean 
understanding and ignoble enthusiasm of the mob. I 
am glad to say that I am abandoning it for the more 
detached occupation of scribbler.” 

“Wonderful!” she had replied, relieved by hi's assur¬ 
ance, “But before you do I should like you to speak 
for our Modern Authors Club. I am glad you feel 
that way about lecturing; still, being on the program 
committee of my club, I like to secure good speakers, 
and I will admit that lectures do one good; they save 
us the dreary task of much reading.” (Mrs. Montgo¬ 
mery had caught this much of the spirit of her age 
and class:—an insatiable appetite for tabloid informa¬ 
tion). 

And, under the circumstances, Jeffrey, by now will¬ 
ing to placate a hundred thousand of Helen’s relations, 
if need be, had been able to do no less than to ac¬ 
quiesce. 

“Do you know what kind of things he is going to 
write?” the aunt went on, speculating over Helen’s 
sudden abstraction. 

“Essays and short stories, I believe. He writes for 
the syndicates.” 

“Oh,”—visibly impressed by the word ‘syndicate’—* 
“I do hope that if he ever comes to write novels, he 
won’t be tempted to do one of those miserable auto¬ 
biographies that so many of the young men are doing 
since Samuel Butler’s example.” 


318 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“I suppose they haven’t imagination enough to do 
anything else,” Helen remarked, ringing for me ice. 
“But even that is better than these sappy romances by 
incorrigible optimists. Anyway, Mr. Collingsworth is 
interested in more serious problems—knows a lot 
about the theory of things—and has made, since he has 
lived in Chicago, a great many hazardous ventures in 
behalf of the poor. He is,” concluded with a slight 
undercurrent of defiance, “a very nice young man, 
and has been of great assistance to me.” 

“I mean nothing seriously derogatory by regret¬ 
ting that he had been a speaker, my dear,” the aunt 
hastened to say “and I feel much better to know that 
you are accompanied on those frightful excursions of 
yours. Still I do think you should take a rest and go 
with me up to Fox Lake or to the Dells for a while— 
you might induce Mr. Collingsworth to go along, if you 
are going to work on those reports—, besides it would 
be convenient to have a man along.” Mrs. Montgomery 
looked at her niece to mark the effect of this last 
suggestion. 

But Helen was on guard. “Do you think then, that 
a man is so needful, Aunt Kate?” she questioned with 
an affectation of langour that was thinly transparent 
to the discerning lady sitting opposite. 

“I think that a young woman with your complexion 
and directness makes a poor business of concealing her 
feelings,” said her aunt with a merry laugh,“so I am 
going to kiss you here, and here, and leave you to 
your thoughts.” 

( 3 ) 

When the light of the moon plays upon the lapping 
waters of a willow-bordered lake, and the slightest 
motion of a tiny boat suffices to make the reflected 
stars dance about like drunken fairies; when the sky 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


319 


overhead is an innocent blue, and the very whispers 
of every vagrant breeze are laden with the murmurs 
of passion-heavy flowers; when the little boat has 
crept softly beneath the unsubstantial shadows of an 
overhanging tree; and when, therein and closer to¬ 
gether, perhaps, than is strictly necessary, there are a 
man and a maiden in whose veins is the blood of 
youth; then, O putrid cabbage head of Respectabil¬ 
ity—any beautiful thing may happen. 

And it did!—Once, . . . twice, . . . thrice. 

But how many stars are there in the heavens? Madam 
Grundy, if she were listening by the shore of the lake, 
would have heard nothing, even if she had strained 
her ears (which, by the way, I hope she did). And 
the delicious moments when their mouths burned 
upon one one another were not timed to harmony 
with a censor. And the fate of Democracy—which is, 
at best, but a poor and transient thing—was left to 
the soiled hands and shoddy heads of Demos; the idle 
questions that vex the tormented minds of a thousand 
sap-drained metaphysicians were all forgot in the com¬ 
pelling presence of a more ancient wisdom. 

To record their words would be to set down a 
delirious symbology of nonsense—the same in all 
ages—beneath which is hid the very core of the mean¬ 
ing of life and the sum of truth; but which, in the 
act of saying, conveys, to foreign ears, but the lisping 
patter of fools. It is needless, therefore, to say that 
because of the passion of a second they swore, within 
hearing of the shifting sand, to an everlasting fidelity; 
or to observe that they embraced with such ardour as 
nearly to upset the boat. From what the moon was 
vouchsafed to see through the overhanging boughs, 
the two were full of joyance; and if the moon were 
satisfied, that is enough. 

There were two cottages side by side, and into them, 



320 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


when the stars began to pale, and after many tender 
assurances, went the man and the maid. And she, 
when she had gone to her bed, sank into the dream¬ 
less sleep of tired satisfaction, and about her bruised 
red lips was a smile. 

With him it was otherwise, and the dawn was quite 
come before he slept; for there was yet a flavor and a 
fragrance about his lips that he must need recall again 
and yet again. And when he slept, there were visions 
that came;—a troupe of beautiful girls, and their leader 
was Helen; and in her hair there were blue hyacinths, 
and a band of beryls was about her brow; and about 
her feet were the fallen petals of pink roses, and her 
feet were white like new ivory. And his cup of happi¬ 
ness was full. 

Right merry they were at the noon breakfast the 
next day, though Jeffrey blushed very vividly when 
Helen had been able to contain their secret no longer 
than it took to take two bites of grapefruit. And if 
the stupid creatures were surprised at Aunt Kate’s 
lack of amazement, they were no less glad at her 
cordial acceptance of a new nephew. 

“As if it weren’t written all over your faces!” she 
exclaimed, laughing at their dismay. Nevertheless, 
as is wont to be, for some reason, there were tears in 
her laughter. 

Mrs. Montgomery was not sorry to know that her 
niece was engaged. Not that she disapproved of 
women taking a part in life, but because she felt that 
such a part must be brief and soon acted—a prelude 
to better things, she was used to say. And she did 
not regret Jeffrey, for had not her niece rejected all 
the likely young men of her acquaintance? And there 
must be someone. She liked his looks, his voice, his 
taste in clothes, and his old-fashioned manners (for 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


321 


he had taken care to revive the little customs that he 
once had scorned, and was not now so particular to 
affect the Northern ways), and the tender glances that 
he bestowed upon Helen. Already she had inquired 
somewhat into his ancestry—she was born in other 
days—;, and approved of the son of a clergyman as a 
fitting match for a lawyer’s daughter. True, the Pres¬ 
byterian part was not altogether agreeable to one who 
was of a more ancient faith, attended St. Peters at 
Easter time, and observed Lent, but still the son of a 
clergyman was the son of a clergyman; and if evil 
things were said of such offspring, the fact remained 
that, in her eyes, he was a gentleman. 

So they were all filled with a restless content. 

That is what love does. 


( 4 ) 

The days at Fox Lake passed with the rapidity of 
seconds, and life for the two lovers was so completely 
a thing of caressing glances and contented sighs, and 
clasped hands that reports, and investigations and all 
problems whatsoever were as if they had noti been. 
That fretful midge, the human reason, ceased to 
trouble them—Phi Beta Kappa or not—with its buzz, 
buzz of busy impudence, and the “I think” gave wav 
to “We feel.” So it was in Paradise, until there was 
a snake. 

This state of things could not last forever, alas, 
and all too soon there came the dreary necessity of 
returning to the city. Mrs. Montgomery must do this 
and that for the club, and something else for St. Peters. 

A city does not of ‘necessity kill passion—it may 
inflame it in a certain artificial way—, but to those 
who have been used to fields and forests as settings 
for their day-dreams, the city is not provocative of 


322 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the finer moods; at least not the American city. There 
are the noises, the 1 cries of news venders, and those 
innumerable affronteries by means of which progres¬ 
sive industrialism thrusts itself at one from every 
turn. One begins at once to think in the terms of 
Veblen, Shaw, and the pamphleteers. And they call 
this returning to earth! 

There had been, as yet, no word of when the mar¬ 
riage would take place; the formidable expression had 
not been uttered, nor had it been consciously present 
to any save Helen’s aunt who had already, in her 
mind, been making pictures of its slightest details, and 
who had no doubt of its being done, with due solemn¬ 
ity, in her own church. 

First thing for Collingsworth came the distressing 
news that he would have to get out of the apartment 
in which, ever since he had left th£ Futurists, he had 
been very comfortably housed. He hated moving; 
more so now that the walls of his room bristled with 
books. But since the place was to be overhauled, and 
the landlord’s word was final, he set about a task 
that would have been frightfully dull, had not Helen 
volunteered her assistance. For her the idea of house¬ 
hunting was no end of fun; and with her the fact it¬ 
self took on an attraction that as unbelievable. And 
when, after two days of tramping about, with many 
pleasant interludes of tea and ices, a place was found, 
he was uncertain whether to be glad or not. The 
place was likely enough: a small brick building, for¬ 
merly a stable belonging) to an imposing atrocity in 
yellow brick which, with the growth of the city, had 
given way to apartments. By some miracle this little 
edifice was, instead of being converted into a garage, 
turned into a very habitable two-roomed cottage, such 
as is frequently rented under the dignified title of 
studio. It had a bath, and, what was equally neces- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


323 


sary, but, to Jeffrey, not so desirable, a telephone. 

“Confound telephones! They are a nuisance; inter¬ 
rupt one’s reading and one’s sleep. I suppose I will 
have to put up with it though.” 

“But you can talk to me over this hateful invention, 
can’t you? Will that be so dreadful?” 

“Oh I had forgotten that.of course now, it 

is different.” The janitor, who had admitted them 
being out of the room for a moment, Jeffrey demon¬ 
strated just how different he felt that it was. 

“But I am sorry you didn’t want me on the North 
Side near you,” he said presently. 

“We’d never get anything done, Jeffrey. No, this 
is far better for both of us. Here you are so near to 
the Field Museum, one block from Hyde Park Boule¬ 
vard, and almost on the edge of the Lake. It’s lovely, 
and it will make variety for us when we visit one an¬ 
other.” 

“Will you come to see me. . . . here.at my 

cottage?” Jeffrey was just a little startled by this 
casual proposal. He knew that she was not precisely 
conventional, that she had read too much and seen 
too much for that; but he had feared that she might, 
in the last analysis, be afraid to put one of his two 
remaining heterodoxies into practice. What did she 
mean by “visit” at his cottage? 

“Certainly, silly boy; I thought you were dreadfully 
radical, .... but then you’ve never been to Europe, 
have you? Well, you see, you are going to fit this 
room for a study, reception room or studio, as you 
please; the other is to be your bedroom. You will 
receive here, Mr. Old-Fashion, any men or women you 
choose to invite. You rationaliists are as stiff as 
Covenanters.” 

“I am not old-fashioned,” he protested, irritated by 
the charge, “I didn’t say that there was anything 




324 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


wrong about your coming. On the contrary, I was 
afraid you wouldn’t. I’m delighted.” 

“In your mind, yes, when you come to reason about 
it. But just for a moment, sir, you were a wee bit 
shocked,’” she accused, pinching his cheek slightly. 
“You still have some of the village obscenities left 
among your instincts. All country preachers, and 
cross-roads old maids think that when a young woman 
visits a young man’s room that happens which, if simi¬ 
larly circumstanced, they would wish! to happen to 
them. But this is Chicago, and, what is more to the 
point, the twentieth century; and, Jeffrey dear, this 
room is ever so much nicer than most of those box¬ 
like studios. You must hurry and get moved into it.” 

* * * * 

She was a wonderful companion, he reflected, think¬ 
ing over the incident days afterwards when he was 
snugly established in his little house; beautiful, 
thoughtful of others, passionate, and' modern. How 
modern, he wondered. He had told her of Nellie, and 
Lois, and Martha—everything. She had seemed mildly 
interested and not jealous. She didn’t know women 
were like that, she had said; she had thought such con¬ 
duct was reserved for men. But she hadn’t been shocked 
by the relation; thought it was better that men have 
experience of that kind than the usual thing. Such 
affairs would better happen before marriage; then one 
knew. 

Marriage? Would she insist upon that? They hadn’t 
really spoken of it; were they actually drifting into 
marriage? Some of his books leaned down to frown 
upon the very idea. By Jove! They would better talk 
that matter over at once. At Fox Lake it had not 
seemed important; just now it loomed up formidably. 
It must not be. 

No, marriage was the death of romance, he reasoned; 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


325 


and his love for Helen was too beautiful a thing to be 
subjected to such a test. Free, people endeavored 
constantly to please, never grew too familiar, kept 
on the stretch to be interesting; and thus, striving to 
meet the expectations of the other with frequent sur¬ 
prise, became something themselves. Married, they 
sagged, took one another for granted, and thus became 
stupid. His father had for years dominated Mrs. Col¬ 
lingsworth in opinions as in life. He loved her no 
doubt, but he had crushed what individuality she had. 
Perhaps it was better now that he had left the min¬ 
istry ; that was enough to make anyone disagreeable. 
A minister had to see to it that his wife’s clothes 
were just so, not too fine for Mrs. A., and good enough 
for Mrs. B. Well, age and trouble and life at the farm 
had remedied that, but the fact remained: legality 
made a mess of love. People should be able to live 
together in freedom with all the' fineness and rever¬ 
ence and loyalty that blind idealists still attribute to 

marriage. Yes, he would insist upon that.he 

would fight for that as for freedom of speech. 

they were the two things left in which he could be¬ 
lieve enough to fight.Socialism? Hardly. Per¬ 

haps, if it weren’t for the Socialists; it was merely 
interesting, but the others were vital—had to do with 
life as it was actually lived under the sun. . . . Con¬ 
found that rat! What was he eating? 

Oh bother, he must finish that story before morn¬ 
ing. . . . where was he?. . . . Yes, that was it. 

Damned nonsense. Why did people pay for such 
stuff? He sharpened his pencil. But they did, and 
there was some money in it; one must live, especially 
now that there was Helen to be considered. There 
was no turning back. He began to write eagerly. 

And the rat gnawed all night in the attic overhead, 
and wondered why the intruder below soiled but did 
not eat the paper that lay before him. 







XXXV 


W HILE the tea was brewing, Helen arranged 
the roses he had brought, placing them 
thoughtfully in a great bronze Chinese bowl. 
Jeffrey sat crouched forward on the edge of the Empire 
couch, his chin resting in his hands so as to give his 
face some semblance to that of a benevolent gargoyle. 
He allowed his gaze to wander from her deft fingers 
long enough to make an appreciative survey of the 
room. The old black oak hundred-legged table on 
which the girl was placing the flowers, the little but¬ 
terfly stand in the corner, the curious old kettle-front 
secretary with its graceful cabinet top, the ladder- 
backed Chippendales, the etchings on the wall— 
Cameron’s, Haden’s, Whistler’s—the soft gray rugs, 
all made a very satisfying appeal. There was not too 
much; there was none of the stiff newness of the 
strict period manner so inescapable at Mrs. Montgo¬ 
mery’s ; it was comfortable, spacious, elegant, simple, 
So many of the places where he went were soft, fluffy 
and suffocating; typifying the ambitions as well as 
the cultural level of their owners. This was just 
right; and there was enough of age and dignity about 
the few pieces that Helen had brought from her home 
to make him feel that their forebears would have 
never quarrelled. There was no trace of a gold fish 
and canary atmosphere to spoil it all. 

Helen, too, was lovely this afternoon, in a simple 
house-dress of gobelin blue silk. The tips of ( her 
ears were just visible beneath a fluff of brown hair. 
The blue was of just that shade to accentuate the 
adorable pink in her cheek. What a lucky devil he was! 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


327 


“I just had a note from Mary Gregg, dear, and you 
can’t think what has happened to her.” 'Helen stepped 
back to survey the flowers with a smile of appreciation. 

“Been elected to a head-professorship somewhere? 
Principal of a school?” 

“No!”—with disgust—“Can’t you think of Mary in 
some other terms? I’m afraid most people never see 
below the surface. Mary is beautiful; too good by 
far for your academic fossil-friend, Hughley.” 

“Hughley!”—she isn’t going to. ... ? 

“She is going to marry Raymond Hughley, and she 
is as happy as a bird.” 

“What a world! Why, I never dreamed of either of 
them marrying. Hughley used to go about with girls 
at Argyle—always with a different one—, but I 
thought he and Mary were more like brother and 
sister.” 

“That is a very good basis for marriage—good 
enough for most,—and I fancy they will continue iust 
like that; a slow, comparatively happy existence, with 
little excitement; he with his experiments and she 
with the mending. . . . But,” she broke off suddenly, 
“I was forgetting tea, and you look starved.” 

“I am a little tired,” he said, taking one of the sand¬ 
wiches, “Aunt Kate’s lecture is my last. The women’s 
clubs are as silly as the cults. I’m not sure but they 
are not cults.” 

Helen was amused. “I hope you didn’t shock poor 
Aunt Kate?” 

“No, I didn’t shock anybody, and I wasn’t shocked. 
If I were as big a fool as I was when I came north, 
I suppose I would go on lecturing to these females 
in the hope that sometime and somewhere there would 
be a really intelligent and serious group of people; 
but I don’t have to taste everything on the bill of fare 
now in order to know what is good.” 



328 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“You throw away the entire bill?” 

“So far as groups go, yes. I’ll tell you what they 
were like.” Jeffrey was suddenly animated with 
diabolical glee:— 

“Serious women, rows and rows of them, ages 
indeterminate; a sprinkling of unused lorgnettes. They 
carry about fat, uncut volumes of Bergson and 
Eucken, or whatever happens to be the rage at the 
moment, and chatter in a jargon about creative mind, 
and intuition, freewill and duration. One exclaims— 
‘Oh, isn’t Bergson spiritual! I am so uplifted by him; 
and the life force just simply makes me tingle!” 

“One fool woman wanted to know whether ‘dear 
Nietzsche wasn’t really Bergson in poetry?’—Bah! 
Then there are the sticky women who come up after¬ 
wards and want to know, confidentially, if you really 
believe in Nietzsche’s morals; and follow that by sug¬ 
gesting that their unspeakable husbands are away 
from home! . . . and that for old Friederich who was 
a recluse and taught a morality that makes the ten 
commandments seem soft as dough!” 

Helen was convulsed. 

“Do you know,” he continued, “I believe there is a 
definite ratio of these nymphomaniacs to certain un¬ 
fortunate writers. I have compared notes with other 
speakers on this same point. If one lectures to, say, 
five hundred women on Bernard Shaw, five will come 
forward afterward to ogle and demonstrate the Ann 
Whitfield instinct; if it is Hauptmann—particularly 
if the Sunken Bell is rung in—, there will be ten; if 
Nietzsche, fifteen; Maeterlinck, twenty; and I should 
be afraid what would happen at a Whitman lecture.” 

“But the same thing happens to women who try 
to do anything in public,” she countered with a 
chuckle. “One out of five business men, and nine 
out of ten politicians try the same tactics with me 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


329 


when I mention even so prosaic a thing as sewer-pipes 
to them. And every actress is run after by tired 
business men and young fops.” 

“I know. It’s silly—artificial. They all make such 
grave pretenses about it. It would be better if peo¬ 
ple just went and took what they wanted in the name 
of what they always seem to desire. Why dress it 
up with some poor devil of an author? It’s our rotten 
age, I suppose.” 

“I think you are wrong,” said Helen. “It is merely 
that humans are new to civilization and certain subtle 
indirections; and their attempts to disguise ancient 
impulses become ludicrous. I imagine that when 
Christianity began to be preached, the frumpy old 
society ladies murmured together—‘How radical! How 
advanced, how immoral, my dear, setting aside our 
ethics and our gods!’ and went out forthwith to hold 
the hands of the street preachers.” 

“Herds have always been silly, and I have been the 
silliest of all in expecting anything of them,” he con¬ 
fessed mournfully. 

“Here, take some more tea, and you won’t be so 
downhearted,” Helen suggested with a mischievous 
smile. “Food and drink help us to keep a balance of 
healthy meliorism in these matters. Oh, and I will 
get some Sauterne; it is the only wine I have in the 
house, and it will have to do.” 

“Ah! that is excellent, and there is something in 
your philosophy, I will admit,” he conceded, eyeing 
the remaining sandwiches thoughtfully. “It is aston¬ 
ishing how much more amusing the universe seems 
after a generous meal. That doesn’t alter what I 
said, however. But you and what you have fed me 
make me feel much better. And that reminds me that 
on the way down from the club house, I sketched a 
little story.” Jeffrey drew forth a piece of note paper. 


330 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


“It's just an outline, but I think it will be amusing.” 

The scene of the story was laid in Heaven where, 
leaning upon the ramparts were Jesus, Charles Dar¬ 
win, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Walt Whitman and John 
Wesley, looking down with profound disgust upon 
their silly disciples who were busily engaged in war¬ 
ping and twisting and quarrelling over the teachings 
of their departed leaders; converting them into dog¬ 
mas that utterly destroyed their spirit, and defeated 
the ends for which they had been promulgated. 

“Oh what perversion of democracy!” exclaimed 
Whitman; “What profanation of faith!” from Wesley; 
“Muddle-heads,” said Nietzsche; “Pharisees, hyp¬ 
ocrites,” sighed Jesus; “Fools,” cried Darwin, and at 
the word he spat copiously upon his bickering dis¬ 
ciples. Following his example, all the great leaders 
began to ensalivate their clamorous adherents, and 
in this task they were aided by all the prophets and 
teachers of Heaven, until, upon the earth beneath, 
there rose a great stream, inundating the planet, and 
finally, threatening the very solar system. Rabelais, 
standing near, suggested a more fitting method for 
visiting contempt upon these scurvy fellows, but the 
prophets, while they chuckled at the proposal, feared 
that celestial censorship would prevent its being put 
into execution. When the planetary system disap¬ 
peared from view, the great leaders gave a sigh of con¬ 
tent: “Now we can breathe,” they said. 

Jeffrey replaced the notes and took a sip of wine, 
questioning with his eyes. 

“I suppose it is just,” Helen agreed with a frown, 
“but I think Jesus would not have approved of 'the 
method. He would rather have felt such pity and dis¬ 
appointment that he would have drowned them all 
with his tears; add that, and you may make an excel- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


331 


lent story. But where would you get such a thing 
published?” 

“Em tempted sometimes to start a small publishing 
house, and bookshop,” he said, “with a very select 
stock of old and rare books, and just such modern 
things as seem to me worth while. I should like to 
put out new editions of some of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury English translations. If I had a place of that 
kind I might, now and then, print some things that 
otherwise could never be done. My writing does not 
keep me occupied enough; and if I am going to work 
I want something that is part play.” 

“Bookselling makes people stuffy, doesn’t it?” she 
inquired, sceptically. 

“There is no end of excitement in it,” declared 
Jeffrey. “Finding first editions, association volumes, 
to say nothing of tempting people to buy fine things 
when they are looking for trash, provides a lot of 
entertainment. Think of the opportunity: a man comes 
in to buy the Hid T en Hand and you sell him Marins 
the Epicurean!” 

“That would be fun,” Helen observed, settling her¬ 
self on the couch within reach, and looking as if she 
felt that other occupations would be infinitely more 
amusing. 

And they were. 

* * * * 

Not until the latter part of September was Jeffrey 
able to approach the problem that he so much 
dreaded—marriage. Every day she had seemed more 
dear, and the dearer she grew the more fearful he 
became. She was very necessary to his life, he felt; 
not simply because of the lure of her beautiful body 
and the exquisite charm of her face—though they 
were enough, in all conscience, to tempt him—, but 
also, yes, and chiefly, because of her enthusiasms, her 


332 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


vitality, genuineness and intelligence. He found that 
she was by no means typical of either the feminists 
or the reformers; there was nothing angular nor 
hysterical about the woman. And there was some¬ 
thing unusual about the quality of her mind. Fem¬ 
inine? Yes, and easily moved to tears; but never to 
sobs. She loved to be kissed, petted and even teased, 
and during these moments she did not descend to 
prosaic trivialities. 

Nor did she meet ^questions after the manner of 
women; there were no evasions, no shocks. One could 
speak to her with the same frankness with which one 
was accustomed to address men. If there were a 
sudden engagement, there was no need for elaborate 
explanations. She was frank, and expected others to 
be equally so. Whatever came into her mind she 
spoke out, and she welcomed the same from her com¬ 
panion. Well, in a word, she was, to Jeffrey, perfect. 

Still, there were his ideals. He had battled for 
them in his way, and had suffered. With all the dis- 
illusionments he clung to his theories of free marriage 
with pathetic earnestness. 

All the way across town he had planned his speech. 
He must make her know just how much he wanted 
her,—and that forever. And he must make clear that 
he was no cheap varietist , 1 chasing women as entomol¬ 
ogists run after butterflies; that he was not seeking a 
vulgar affair. She must know that already, but he 
was afraid. 

The room was heavy-sweet with the scent of laven¬ 
der, and she was wearing the beryls that he had given 
her, inspired by his dream. It was hard to talk when 
he wanted to take her in his arms and just hold her— 
forever. But he must, come what would. 

“Helen,” he began, nervously fingering his walking 
stick, “I want to talk to you about marriage.” It was 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


333 


hard for him to speak; and, now that he was in her 
presence, what he planned to say seemed cold and 
casual. He trembled. All night he I had tossed in 
troubled anticipation of this moment, and now all 
the beauty of the words had escaped; the idea was 
barren. s 

“Is that so appalling, Jeffrey dear ?” she questioned, 
struck by the unusual pallor of his face and the 
strained look in his eyes. 

“No,” he said, taking her hands from his shoulders, 
“I don’t want you t to do that, Helen; it takes away 
all my courage. Please sit down; I must say it.” 

As she arranged the cushions, and curled up in a 
corner of the couch, he began to pace the rug, striving 
to keep his glance averted. 

“You must know that I love you,” he began awk¬ 
wardly. . . . “You are everything, and I want you 
always. . . . This has been the most beautiful thing 
that ever came to me. . . . the only person who never 
disappointed, except my mother.” 

Then he outlined his idea of marriage, his ideal. 
He differentiated sharply between it and the ordinary 
notion of free love. He hated that; this was another 
thing. Would she understand? As he walked, s one 
familiar with his early history would have been quick 
to mark how like the elder Collingsworth he was in 
his nervous walk and in the way he twitched his 
fingers. 

“I don’t believe in marriage,” he finished desperate¬ 
ly, looking into her eyes as though he expected her to 
fly through the window at the announcement. 

“Yes, I understand.” She spoke slowly, as though 
pondering over each word. “But I can’t see yet, dear, 
why you are so troubled over it. I know that human 
marriage grew out of strange tribal customs, and 
that it exists as it is because of expediency, property, 


334 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


the state, the protection of the weak, and all that. 
I know that there is no a prioi'i question of right or 
wrong about it. It isn’t moral, but a social question. 
And I know the sordidness of divorce, and think our 
childish laws should be amended. What you have 
said is familiar enough to me; still, I fail to see why 
you are so excited over it?” 

“But I am proposing that we live together, sweet 
thing, without any marriage ceremony by church or 
state. Of course, I’m not silly enough to insist upon 
our boasting about it on every occasion; and we could 
send out cards announcing the fact that we were 
married. We could make our own ceremony,” he 
urged, made hopeful because of her evident tolerance. 

A look of wonderment came into her eyes. “For us 
to live together without marriage?. . . . Why, how 
impossible!” 

“Oh, you don’t trust me!” he cried, his lips trem¬ 
bling with emotion. 

She got up and walked to the window. “It isn’t 
something that can be decided in a minute,” said 
Helen, and, to him, her voice was cold and far off. 

It seemed that she was there for hours. It was al¬ 
most unbearable, and yet he did not trust himself to 
speak. He was moved to throw himself at her feet 
and cry out his pain, but some impulse to dignity for¬ 
bade it. He merely brushed away the gathering tears 
and waited in choking silence. The air seemed laden 
with- the breath of doom; his heart ached with un¬ 
utterable agony. 

She turned and came toward him. “Sit by me 
Jeffrey,” she almost whispered, “while I try to tell 
you what is in my heart. It isn’t that I don’t trust 
you; I know you are sincere, and that you love me; 
but if we did this, think of the social price. . . . No. 
1 don’t mean Lake Shore society; I mean work, doing 



CABLES OF COBWEB 


335 


things. Every time you made} a speech, or wrote a 
thing, you would be referred to as a free-lover, and 
presently you couldn’t do anything. The doors would 
be closed. I am not afraid of being cut—of insult, but 
I don’t want to be helpless. I don’t want my power 
to do things to be killed. This is Puritan America, 
and though we live together as ascetics and saints, we 
would be branded forever. Just the lack of that 
foolish little ceremony would destroy, all of our 
dreams.” She burrowed her hand into his burning 
palm. 

“But people have to be taught that it can be done 
beautifully,” he protested. “We ought to be able to 
pay the price. . . It seems to me the greatest thing 
we could do for the most beautiful thing in the world.” 

Helen closed her eyes with an effort and drew a 
long breath. Suddenly she got up, making a brave 
attempt at cheerfulness. “You must go now,” she 
said. “I. . . . I’ve got to be alone. ... to think.” 

They walked in silence to the door, and with aching 
eyes they searched one another’s souls for that which 

is never known, but in silence. 

* * * * 

For a moment she stood watching him as, with the 
leaden feet of a benumbed sleep-walker, he stumbled 
down the stairs. Her heart yearned for him, and she 
made as if to call out; then, with a quick gesture, she 
closed the door, and, running back into the still room, 

threw herself, face down, upon the couch. 

* * * * 

What had come over her, she wondered, as hours 
later, she walked the floor even as he had done in the 
afternoon. Why was she in the grip of such an un- 
escapable agony? Had she not pondered over such 
“problems” before, as they suggested themselves from 
the pages of well nigh every modern novel or drama? 


336 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Even Aunt Kate had reasoned calmly through hours 
and hours of Ibsen and Shaw. . . . But to live the 
thing; to convert life into a perpetual conflict with 
society. . . . She had for three years been doing battle 
with human greed, but it was the kind of warfare in 
which the “decent element” took her side. In this 
they. . . . everybody. . . . would be against her. . . . 

. . . She wanted him. . . more than anything else, 
she felt; but what did he know of this thing, this 
standing against the wall to be the target for every 
journalistic and social vilification? He had fought too, 
but always with some kind of support. Yes, he had 
been arrested even, for defending some agitator or 
other. . . . But, even then, one of the papers had come 
to his rescue at the last moment. And he was pro¬ 
posing now to challenge the whole body of human 
prejudice. Oh, it would destroy him, her, their love, 
all their life!. . . . And; she loved him so! . . . He 
seemed so broken about it, so frightened, so depend¬ 
ent. . . . That was it; he had communicated his suf¬ 
fering to her; and her heart ached because of his sense 
of loneliness. . . . But was that it? That was too 
simple. . . . Why couldn’t she get hold of herself— 
be reasonable? 



XXXVI 


N O one could find him. The telephone buzzed in 
vain. Hughley rang to ask him to be best 
man at his wedding; Wallace wanted him for 
dinner; Kupmeyer called. Apparently the cottage 
was empty of life save for the gnawing rat overhead. 

Never did a man walk more feverishly, nor with 
such unseeing eyes. It seemed that he was bent upon 
setting foot on every pavement of the South Side. 
There was a look of weariness about him, as if he were 
bearing an invisible burden upon his shoulders. For 
three days he had gone about in this fashion, setting 
out at dawn and not returning until late at night. 
Sometimes he stopped to rest upon a park bench; 
often he merely leaned for a moment against some 
supporting wall. Once a policeman had accosted him 
to know what he was about, and then, finding that he 
was neither drunk nor vagrant, passed on, grumbling 
under his breath. 

Tonight, for the first time, he was conscious, not of 
hunger, but of the need for food. He was growing 
weak, and was like to fall. He thought he might 
swallow hot coffee and a roll. The man at the lunch 
counter at Sixty-Third Street eyed him with suspicion. 
He had heard of these “dope fiends,” and didn’t trust 
them. They were liable to do anything. 

He felt stronger, and as he slowly made his way 
homeward, the outlines of things began to grow more 
clear. Perhaps there was no ground for his suffering 
that way. Why couldn’t he sit down and wait, as others 
would do? It was a big thing that he had asked, and 



338 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


Helen was right in taking time. . . . Or had that last 
farewell been final? 

The mail box was full. He glanced through the 
letters hurriedly. There was nothing from her, so he 
threw them on the table where there were already a 
score of unopened envelopes. Several times he had 
been tempted to write and tell her how much he cared, 
how beautiful their days together had been, how he 
needed her; but he had been restrained by a feeling 
that it would be merely a plea for himself. She must 
decide untroubled. . . . must let him know. 

There was a chill in the air. Shivering, he lighted 
the gas logs. He thought of reading. The testa¬ 
ment? Old Sir Thomas? Montaigne? Hardy? No, he 
didn’t want to read—didn’t want to do anything. The 
telephone rang. He didn’t answer. It rang again, 
and yet again. He got up— 

“Hello!” 

No answer. 

“The party hung up,” came the voice of central. 

“Good!” He went back to his chair, and gazed in¬ 
tently at the artificial logs about which blue green 
flames played like the darting tongue of an evil ser¬ 
pent. The shreds of asbestos hung down like the 
whitened skin of a leper. The wavering shadows on 
the floor were fitful sprites come to mock his loneli¬ 
ness. He looked about the room. It had meant so 
much when she had come to help him arrange it; 
but tonight it didn’t awaken any response. There were 
the Beardsley drawings; the little etching of the Quai 
Voltaire; the old engravings of Samuel Johnson and 
Rabelais; the “shrine corner,” where hung the pic¬ 
tures of his father, in stiff ecclesiastical raiment, his 
mother, smiling for all the prim black satin, and 
Helen. . . . Then there were the high cases of books; 
Gulliver and Tristram Shandy seemed to grin down at 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


339 


him, and Fielding shook his head; Burton’s Anatomy of 
Melancholy thrust itself out eagerly, but met no hand of 
greeting. 

He got up and stood before the pictures in the 
corner. There they were—the people who had loved 
him; the ones that he had loved. To all he had 
brought, what? Suffering and disappointment. 

“Oh God!” he cried, “Why am I made this way?” 

He dropped into a chair by the table and sobbed. 

* * * * 

What was that curious sound of tapping? He sat 
up suddenly. It was strange. How late was it, he 
wondered. The clock had stopped; he had forgotten 
to wind it. He looked at his watch. Why, it was only 
ten o’clock! The tapping came again. Surely some¬ 
one was at the door; perhaps it was Wallace come to 
rout him out. 

It was too dark outside for him to make out the 
queer little figure that stood hesitating on the steps 
below as though awaiting but a word to turn in flight. 

“What is it?” he asked sharply. He was in no mood 
to receive visitors. 

“Jeffrey, don’t you want me?. . . I have come. . . . 
I, I couldn’t stay/ away,” came the voice like far-off 
music. 

They clung to one another like frightened children. 

* * * * 

“Are you sure?” he kept repeating as if determined 
to find some way of destroying his new-found happi¬ 
ness. 

“Sure,” she repeated after him. “Logic, experience, 
common sense, are all against it; but I love you—I 
want you—and I couldn’t bear to think of you here 
lonely and suffering—both of us suffering to be. to¬ 
gether, and just an idea to keep us apart—I’m not 
going to think, just love.” 


340 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


The flames of the gas log were a rosy pink, and the 
fluttering pieces of asbestos might well have been 
fur from the collar of Kris Kringle. The shadows on 
the wall were fairies, and the stout folios smiled with 
benevolence upon the scene. The rat overhead, an¬ 
noyed by so much happiness, had scampered away. 

* * * * 

The big arm chair was hospitable to the two occu¬ 
pants, so snugly did they sit, and it neither creaked 
nor groaned when they occasionally spoke. 

Already they had talked out the misery of their 
three days of suspense and loneliness, and Helen, 
quick to note his haggard face, had insisted upon 
rummaging about for food. There was nothing but 
tea and cakes in the house; but tea and cakes, where 
there is joy, make a feast; and they were abundantly 
satisfied. 

Now they were planning for the future. They 
would get a larger place—there were several nearby. 
It was a good thing, they agreed, that he was not 
lecturing—not a public man any longer. The papers 
might not find it out. They would announce their 
marriage just as though it had been regularly done, 
and she would call herself Mrs. Collingsworth. At 
this last Helen laughed gleefully, and the two em¬ 
braced once more. They would have two work rooms, 
one common living room, a kitchen, dining room 
and—. They stopped there, embarrassed, both of 
them. 

“What will Aunt Kate do?” Jeffrey asked. 

“She will be frightened at first, for fear of a scan¬ 
dal ; but if none comes she will accept us beautifully. 
I will give her a few more modern dramas that are so 
learnedly chattered over at her club, and she will be 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


341 


quite reassured,” Helen explained mirthfully. “But 
what will your parents say?” 

“The announcements will satisfy them; they are 
such innocent dears that they will assume that of 
course we have had a minister, or at least a license, 
and they will, both of them, love you. Old Mammy 
Rhoda is still there, and she will brush her girls aside 
and insist upon preparing a wonderful dinner.” Jeffrey 
smacked his lips in joyful prelibation. 

Thus they planned and dreamed, kissed and em¬ 
braced all the night long, sitting in the great arm 
chair. Nor, for all their Joss of sleep, were they 
conscious of fatigue. Presently Jeffrey saw “the long 
grey fingers of the dawn,” and gave a start— 

“Why, what a brute I am! I have kept you here 
sitting up the blessed night.” 

“It has been a blessed night; I wasn’t aware of the 
time. Are you tired, you dear boy? Oh, you must 
be! It is I who am a brute; your poor lap must be 
quite crushed,” she cried, springing to her feet. 

“Nonsense, you are as light as a feather, and I 
could hold you always. . . . but—” Jeffrey was sud¬ 
denly embarrassed. There were some things that 
he had not associated with Helen—at least not this 
night. He didn’t know how to begin. She might 
think him a beast; might think that the flesh had 
fathered his ideal. In some respects, conventional 
marriage was more convenient; one married and went 
about living at once, and, notwithstanding the mod¬ 
esties, with some naturalness. 

“—You can have my bed. ... in there,” he went 
on desperately. “I have a cushion and blankets. . . . 
it will be very comfortable for me. . . . about noon 
we can go out for breakfast.” 

“Oh!” Helen toyed with a silver paper knife in 
some confusion. Then, with an access of determi- 


342 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


nation, she turned and, taking both of his hands in 
her own— 

“Don’t let’s be fools, darling.I know. 

But you see I am all ready. . . . What do they call 
it?—compromised?—by staying here all the night. . . 
and we are married of our own will.” 

Jeffrey never knew before that cheeks could grow 
quite so rosy, nor lips be so sweet. After a little while 
he whispered in her ear—“I have our marriage ser¬ 
vice put down on a bit of parchment. If you will 
have it, I should like g that we read it first.” 

Out of a thin little fifteenth century manuscript 
book —Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis —he drew forth 
the folded parchment, on which, closely written, was 
the ritual, part original, part compiled. It was twice 
the length of the longer Episcopal service, and three 
times as binding. After a few verses from Corinth¬ 
ians, and a fragment from Lucretius, there followed 
one of Lodge’s sonnets— 

“I give my whole life for her dwelling-place, 

And all my days are mansions made for her, 

And all my heart is like a harp-player 
Singing with eyes insatiate of her face. 

And she, for the same love’s sake, in the trace 
Of my dark journey follows everywhere, 

And from the labor of truth and the despair 
She can console me in her deep embrace 
For love has made her body of his delight 
And of his sacred frenzy, and his light 
Is calm and ardent in her perfect eyes; 

And love has shared his faith and liberty 
Between us, who are blent inseparably 
In the communion of.” 

But just at that moment of moments there came a 
most unexpected and violent pounding on the door. 
Jeffrey started, alarmed by the profane interruption. 




CABLES OF COBWEB 


343 


Could it be—? In some consternation he motioned 
Helen to the room beyond, and, bracing himself, went 
to open the door. 

The brass buttons on the messenger’s boy’s coat 
caught the light of the now risen sun. The boy was 
yawning. 

“Telegram, Mister. . . . Hold on! You have to sign 
here. . . Thanks.” Without waiting for the usual 
“Answer?” he mounted his wheel and was off. 

“Only a telegram,” Jeffrey announced: “Now we 
will go on with our service.” 

The sudden break, the surprise, the quick apprehen¬ 
sion, had revealed the fact that she was very tired. 
She leaned forward wearily against the back of the 
arm chair. “Only a telegram!” she repeated, startled 
by the careless ease with which he tossed it on the 
table, “Why, open, read it; it may be important.” 

“Ha, perhaps some of my stories have made a hit, 
and I am being invited to interview the publisher.” 
He tore open the envelope— 

“God in Heaven!” he groaned, crushing the yellow 
paper in his hand, “My mother! My mother!” 

Helen was at his side in an instant. The message 
they read together was brief: “Mother at the point 
of death. Take first train home. Father.” 

Jeffrey was trembling from head to foot. She led 
him gently to the chair. 

“Sit down, dear,” she said, kneeling at his side. . . . 
“You must go at once. ... I will telephone about the 
trains; then we will get ready.” Jeffrey sat huddled 
down, lost in the dazed stupefaction of utter misery. 
Presently she was at his side once more. 

“There is a train for Cincinnati, from the La Salle 
Street Station at eight o’clock. It makes perfect con¬ 
nections to Virginia. You can gain time by taking it 
at Woodlawn. . . . There are only two reservations 


344 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


left—” she hesitated for an instant—“Shall I make one 
for you?” 

“Yes, please,” he answered mechanically. 

A strange hurt look came into her face, a look of 
bewilderment; then, drawing herself up, she hurried 
back to the telephone. 

Jeffrey got up with an effort and began, with fum¬ 
bling fingers, to> drop things into his travelling bag. 

“I have everything arranged dear, and a taxi will 
be here in half an hour,” Helen announced as she 
came into the bedroom. Then, glancing at the array 
of disorder, “Oh, you poor, poor darling. Let me 
pack for you.” 

* * * * 

All the long way to the station he sat staring out 
into the future of which he had suddenly grown care¬ 
less. Of the nestling form by his side he was scarcely 
aware, although he kept repeating—“You are so dear 
to me; so good.” And that was all he said at the 
depot when, at the moment he was to get aboard the 
train he turned and held her for a second in his arms: 
“You are so dear.” 

Once aboard the train, following the porter down 
the isle, the sense of incompleteness, of something 
forgotten, came upon him with a rush. “Why,” he 
exclaimed half aloud, “I should have made her come 
with me.” In guilty consternation he rushed to the 
window. The train was moving; Helen was slowly 
walking back to the station stairs. She had turned 

away to hide her tears. 

* * * * 

One minute she was saying—“O, the misery that 
has come upon him,—poor, poor boy” And the next 
found her crying out,—“But why didn’t he take me 
with him at such a time?” As the cab jolted along 
over the tortured miles she repeated the words a 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


345 


thousand times. Didn’t the fact of his going away 
in that fashion show that he had no senset of need 
for her? And in such an hour of grief, if he did not 
instinctively cry out for her companionship—when 
he was faced with the greatest sorrow—, what did it 
mean? If they had been married in a church would 
he have thought of going away alone? And then he 
had quite automatically pocketed the key of the little 
house; no thought of her going there; no thought of 
her belonging. Did something within him seem to 
recognize an unfitness in her going to his dying 
mother’s bedside? Her reason dismissed these doubts, 
but something, deep down, troubled her. . . . there 
at the telephone she had hesitated, she had supposed 
that he would tell her to secure both reservations 
when she mentioned it. O, and she would have gone, 
gladly gone—just to be with him when he faced the 
emptiness of the world. What would she have cared 
for wardrobes, clothes, things at such a moment! But 
he didn’t say the word; what was wrong?. . . What 
was wrong? 


XXXVII 


( 1 ) 

A 

T HE air was still, the clouds hung motionless; 
even the birds were silent. And within the 
great white house there was silence also. The 
clouds were ghosts, the trees, on the arm-like boughs 
of which clung the pale etiolated leaves of autumn, 
were ghost trees, and the house was a ghost house. 
In the white-panelled library, there was a long black 
thing which is called a casket, and within the casket 
was the empty shell of what had been a woman. The 
white hair had once been black, and had blown about 
her face as she raced over the hills on horse-back; 
about the now set lips smiles had been wont to play; 
down the traced lines of the faded cheeks many a 
burning tear had run its course. The hands that 
were folded and waxen and inert, had been used to 
minister comfort and to bestow kindness. And now 
the thing that had made of dust a personality was 
gone. 

At the side of the casket sat an old man from whom 
the gift of livingness seemed to have departed. But 
no, he reached out and touched the cold hands with 
one of his own, and his lips moved as though he were 
whispering secrets that only the silence must hear. 

( 2 ) 

He knew that it had happened as soon as he had 
stepped off the train and looked into Tom’s melancholy 
face. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


347 


“Yestiddy mawnin—uhly, yas sah, Mistah Jeffrey.” 

It seemed unbelievable. The hills were unchanged; 
the way-station was the same; out yonder were the 
good old mountains. Only his mother was not. 

And yet things were changed. There was an auto¬ 
mobile, for instance—a desecration in this quiet, 
peaceful countryside where there were old houses, 
embanked roadways and vine-bordered lanes—which 
was to shorten the distance to the house of death. All 
the soft, intimate details of the landscape were lost 
in frantic speed. Perhaps it was better so, for each 
such spot held memories that now clutched at his 
heart like fingers of steel. 

The motor broke the stillness that had hung about 
the mill creek farm for more than a day, and even the 
yellow leaves on the maple trees seemed to shiver 
and stir at the unholy sound. 

The darkies were lined up along the walk where 
they stood in respectful silence before so sorrowful 
a home-coming. To each he gave a solemn greeting, 
pressing their extended hands with real affection, 
until he came to old Rhoda; into her embrace he 
threw himself and sobbed outright. 

“Lawd bless you, chile, her haht sho did ache for 

the sighta huh boy.yuh done loss a good 

motha.” 

-Then at last father and son, with arms about one 

another, stood over the motionless clay. Fitzpatrick, 
who had been waiting about the house for Jeffrey’s 
coming, closed the library door that they might be 
undisturbed by the small regiment of tip-toeing rela¬ 
tives. “And there she lies, poor woman, between two 
theories,” he whispered to himself. 

* * * * 

The long procession, the same old brick church 





348 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


with the eyes of an owl, the same garden of grave¬ 
stones, meaningless words that brought no crumb of 
comfort, barren rites, curious eyes, dust. What did 
it mean? 

( 3 ) 

The night after the funeral he wrote to Helen. His 
sympathies, as well as suggestions from Rhoda and 
Fitzpatrick, told him that for many weeks—perhaps 
months—he ought to stay and try to comfort his 
father. What did she want him to do about it? It 
was cruel to be thus separated. But was it not more 
cruel and very selfish to think of his own love when 
his father was suffering so? He had not spoken to 
his father of her—of their marriage—because, well, 
at first because of the confusion to which he had no 
wish to add so startling an announcement. Now it 
seemed unnatural, and his father might ask questions 
that could but lead to unhappiness. He would wait 
until a better time. Meantime he wanted her, loved 
her, and when he returned would try to make it up. 
Then he would bring her to this, his old home, where, 

—“There lingers the scent of apples and the frag¬ 
rance of tobacco downstairs; above, one catches faint 
whiffs of lavender, even as in your own room. . . . 
without, the branches of a great locust tree brush 
against the window panes, and there is lowing of the 
herds, and the far-off tinkle of a sheep bell. . . . back 
of the house are the now leaning cabins where the 
darkies used to dwell—today they have framed cot¬ 
tages, ugly and stark—, and there is a clear and icy 
spring of pure water gushing out of rocks about which 
the gnarled roots of an ancient elm have wound 
themselves like the giant fingers of a dreadful jinee. In 
the orchard hang apples with rosy cheeks, red apples, 
apples that are green like jade, and apples of russet 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


349 


gold. . . . And, in so far as my heart will let me, I 
joy in the beauty of a picture which has been touched 
by the cold hand of death, and only lacks your pres¬ 
ence, beautiful one, to bring back life and hope. . . 

( 4 ) 

Month followed month, and all through the bleak 
winter, Jeffrey found that his father clung to him 
with a pitiful insistence that forbade all thought of 
return. He arranged for Wallace to look after the 
rent of his cottage, and to send some manuscripts 
and clothes that he needed; forwarded his weekly con¬ 
tributions to the syndicate, and prepared to remain 
in Virginia until spring should come once more. 
Spring, he felt, would be a more cheerful time; a time 
when Mr. Collingsworth could be out of doors and 
be about somewhat more than a listless brooding over 
the past, fostered by the sight of little things around 
the house. For his part, he must get back to Helen; 
and he planned that he would go on ahead, announce 
the marriage, and then send for his father. Perhaps 
they could persuade Mr. Collingsworth to live with 
them; or, better, they could all live in Virginia. 

In the old library he renewed his acquaintance with 
Aristophanes, Lucian, Horace and Juvenal, and was 
surprised to find how much of them he had missed 
in his youth. Was there any such thing as modern 
and ancient, he mused. The abuses and utopias that 
are thought of as peculiar to our age, were attacked 
and dreamed of a thousand years ago. Two thousand 
years before, women were laughed at for paint and 
powder and depilatories; there had been demagogues, 
and graft and peculation. The world had not changed, 
nor human nature altered. 

Why, then, had he made such bother and fuss about 


350 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


change—progress? And why had he been so disap¬ 
pointed in the movements into which he had thrown 
himself with such impetuosity? 

When he stood looking down upon his mother’s face 
a clue had come to him, a clue for which he found no 
word. He had suddenly come to a realization that 
there was a beyond-flesh; just as for many an ancient 
human habitation there was an over-house. Things, 
if they were worth while things, had, or came to 
have, a personality. The mere fact of putting his 
mother in the ground did not make her less real to 
him. He did not like to speak of these things to people 
who would say: “Oh yes, Heaven, immortality,” and 
think in terms of a mere personal continuance off 
somewhere else. No, it was a finer thing than that. 
In was just that the moon and stars came, finally, to 
be something more than mere celestial phenomena; 
and that beyond and through the trees were fairy 
trees. An ancient thought it was, but it had just come 
to him; and somehow it made the world a richer 
place and restored some of the dreams of his childhood. 

Personality, poise, imagination, sweetness, magna¬ 
nimity; these things were worth while. And the re¬ 
formers—the revolutionists—were generally lacking in 
them. There were great exceptions—Debs, for in¬ 
stance—, but most of these people spoke sharply, 
acidly, and were angular in their ways as in their 
thoughts. The John Browns of the world were dis¬ 
agreeable. Thought was not everything, modernity 
mattered very little; but to be gracious was to make 
a noble gesture before the universe. 

There was another thought that came to him also: 
He had shared the American mania for gregarious¬ 
ness, for joining things. Wisdom certainly did not 
lie in that direction. Men and women might be ab¬ 
surd, pathetic, ridiculous even; but they were gen- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


351 


erally decent when one took them apart and alone. 
Herded together, with elbows and shins in contact, 
they became idiotic and even fiendish. “At all events,” 
he comforted himself, “I have never yet joined a 
lodge!” 

His father had grown more and more tolerant, and 
now, over the chess board, with their pipes aglow, 
they found a quiet sense of companionship that was 
a joy to them both. Some evenings Jeffrey would 
read aloud from Pickwick —one of Mr. Collingsworth’s 
favorites—and this led to the discovery that the home 
library had, all unknown, a rare copy of the first edi¬ 
tion of that remarkable volume bound up from the 
parts. It was a fortunate cantrip of fate, this dis¬ 
covery, for, when his son expounded his knowledge 
of rare editions, Mr. Collingsworth caught the con¬ 
tagion and began forthwith to re-examine his books. 
It revealed very little of value other than that of 
old associations: the North’s Plutarch was no older 
than 1658, and Raleigh’s History of the World was 
a late edition, printed in 1652. Then the father had 
remembered that there were some old books in the 
attic, and, in great excitement, they had begun the 
search. There were sermons for the most part; a 
complete file of Hagerstoivn Almanacs, and another 
of the Christian Observer; but in one box, tucked far 
under the eaves, were found the nine small volumes 
of Tristram Shandy as they were issued at York in 
1759—1765, while in the fifth, seventh, and ninth vol¬ 
umes were the autograph signatures of L. Sterne him¬ 
self. But most exciting of all was the Shakespeare. 
Mr. Collingsworth had declared, as he went up the 
stairway, that there was a folio in his grandfather’s 
library, so cumbrous that it had been put away; he 
had no idea of its date. At last they dug it out from 
beneath some of Edward’s Sermons— -joints cracked, 


352 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


leather blackened with age, and the paper thumbed 
at the corners, it was nevertheless a fourth folio— 
“Printed for H. Herringman” in 1685. On the front 
cover was pasted the armorial bookplate of David 
Garrick! The two men in the attic behaved for a 
time as though they were insane. 

“And to think,” cried Mr. Collingsworth, “these 
treasures have lain up here for years as so much rub¬ 
bish to be eaten by rats. I’m going to go through 
everything in this house.” 

There was soon a Lownde’s Bibliography in the 
library, and the old man found no inconsiderable 
pleasure during the balance of the winter in making 
a catalogue of his books. 


XXXVIII 


( 1 ) 

T HIS happy diversion not only brought new 
interest to Mr. Collingsworth, but it also gave 
to Jeffrey the freedom to enter upon the con¬ 
genial task of translating Le Bovarysme of Jules de 
Gaultier. Wallace had suggested it to him months 
before, but the fact of romance had been too com¬ 
pelling to leave either time or inclination for a study 
of man’s power to create illusions for himself. Now 
that he had begun to reflect upon some of his dis¬ 
appointments, this book came to him with clarifying 
force. It seemed to have been written especially for 
him. Had he not, from the outset, been imaging the 
world of men and women as somewhat other than 
they were? His subsequent dissatisfactions were the 
products of his own unmitigated folly. And himself 
he had attempted to cast in the role of an evangelist 
of science, whereas his instincts were all for poetry, 
imagination; of democracy, when his instincts were 
those of a solitary. He had been—even as Sir Thomas 
Browne said—clutching at cables of cobweb. De 
Gaultier said that every human being struggled be¬ 
tween two tendencies; what he was, by heredity, 
instinct, environment; and what he imagined himself 
to be as the result of some fancy. In so far as these 
tendencies happened to converge, success might fol¬ 
low; but most often there was a vast chasm between 
them—the Bovarystic angle—that made for a tragi¬ 
comic failure. The book at once fascinated and 
frightened him. Was he an illustration of it, he asked 


354 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


himself. Was not everything, rather, a confirmation 
of it? Tom, who was coachman, chauffeur, farmhand 
by turns, was at heart unmoral, heathen, carefree; but 
he had conceived for himself the part of an earnest 
preacher, and on certain Sundays of each month made 
the little log school house groan with fervid Christian 
eloquence. On week days Tom would stand by, a 
fascinated but miserable onlooker, while less inhibited 
and happier blacks were rolling dice. His fingers 
would fairly twitch to be in the game; now and then 
his eager knees would bend as if to compel their un¬ 
fortunate owner to bow before the god of Chance. 
Then some of his Christian friends would happen 
along, or a white man would pass near, and Tom, 
remembering his assumed part, would half-heartedly 
reprove the unmindful gamblers. Yes, Tom was an 
illustration. So, in a way, was his father; so was 
Fitzpatrick. People were all playing parts; no one 
was natural. 

Several times during the winter Jeffrey had gone 
with one of the negroes to help with the sheep. Some 
of the ewes had, by accident, been bred so as to drop 
their lambs at this inconvenient season of snow and 
ice, and had to be looked after; there was a stampede 
during which one of the wethers, more daring than 
the rest, had rushed too near the crumbling but icy 
bank of the creek, not only to fall in himself, but to 
lead his luckless followers after him. How much 
more intelligent, thought Jeffrey, than most other 
democrats. For human democrats would fuss around 
and pretend to debate, to reason, about the action of 
their leaders before they followed; but they would 
just as surely, for all their talk, take the tumble. 
The sheep had the advantage of it; they merely 
jumped in and drowned themselves, or broke their 
necks. They didn’t waste time discussing it before- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


355 


hand. All of their energy was reserved for the essen¬ 
tial, democratic, conformatory, greatest-good-for-the- 
greatest-number flop. Jeffrey wondered if they created 
any comforting illusions for themselves as they went 
over. Did they say: ‘‘At any rate we followed the 
excellent precedent of Senator Wether.” or “We were 
obedient unto the end; blessed be the name of Gre- 
garius”? 

( 2 ) 

The letters that came from Helen were not at all 
reassuring, although Jeffrey was not able to say why. 
They\ were full of tenderness, and, from the outset, 
she had urged him to remain with his father until he 
should be better able to spare him. But there was 
an undertone of sadness and disappointment that he 
was unable to understand. Of course, hei reasoned, 
it was tragic that death should have come almost at 
the instant when they were pronouncing themselves 
husband and wife, and when they were trembling be¬ 
fore a very beautiful expectancy. This memory was 
almost enough to drive him back to Chicago at once. 
But no, he must be sensible and kind. There was no 
need for upsetting his father’s life again, when, by 
possessing himself, everyone could be made happy. 

As he read and re-read the daily messages, it seemed 
to him that she was a little afraid of his changing 
outlook upon life. She detected, she told him, a 
growing tendency toward an individualistic, hedon¬ 
istic mysticism; or at least she gathered it from his 
letters. “I fear,” she wrote, “any approach to Oriental 
thought on the part of the West. Inactivity is a curse 
to us; and when any fundamental scepticism is wedded 
to the mystic point of view, inaction logically fol¬ 
lows. . . . You say that you have been disillusioned 
of society; but, even when we were on our tours 


356 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


about town together last summer, you were so kind 
and dear to the unfortunate people we met; never 
treated them as though you felt the least bit the way 
you now talk of feeling toward mankind. . . 

And again she had written: “I have no more hope 
of a millenium than you, certainly never as much as 
you once had, my dear; but there are some things 
that, as intelligent people, we should never permit: 
I mean these overwhelming acts of injustice against 
the helpless ones of the earth, the exploitation of 
children, the deprivation of their rights to health and 
education. . . .” 

Jeffrey was not sure that he agreed with this last. 
Health, certainly, should be safeguarded, but educa¬ 
tion? It seemed to him now that education was good 
for only a few people—for those who manifested a 
passion and a genius for knowledge. Were college 
folk any more brilliant or original than the unlettered? 
They were less original, but more facile in speech, he 
decided. They were colder, less sympathetic. All 
they gained by education was a less colorful and more 
correct vocabulary; a certain set of phrases; an abil¬ 
ity to dress in the average unoffensive manner; an 
enlarged capacity to earn money up to a given limit. 
This last had come to be the object of a college educa¬ 
tion. But the average A. B. supported an obviously 
idiotic political creed, sat in a golden-oak pew at the 
Mudville Church, grinned over ancient platitudes with 
his neighbors, interested himself in the growth of his 
town,—nay, actually took pride in pointing out new 
stores and gas stations, glibly informing one concern¬ 
ing the cost of their erection; belonged to a lodge, 
and was, in fine, as dull as the alderman or even the 
mayor. As a gardener, or hod-carrier, how much more 
interesting and original he would have been. Educa¬ 
tion gave to mediocrity the conceit that it was equiv- 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


357 


alent to culture, but it sapped away its original and 
simple enthusiasms. Jeffrey was inclined to thank 
his creator that Virginia was an ignorant state. 

“The ideal condition for society,” he wrote to Helen, 
“is one in which only the clever, the curious and the 
well-bred, who have the instincts of gentility, possess 
what is called education. Indeed, such people are 
unhappy without knowledge; all others are unhappy 
with it. The inferior man, regardless of academic 
training, is susceptible to mob-mania and every sort 
of vulgar hoodlumism. In fact, he is a hoodlum, just 
as ready to applaud and follow William Jennings 
Bryan or the yellow journals, as are the members of 
the Bottle Washer’s Union. Any crisis, however 
trivial, will prove it. To avert this danger, we need 
a cultured minority to run things; to have absolute 
control. . . . See what a difference a few years have 
made in my outlook? I prefer the company of old 
Mammy Rhoda to that of the conventional Ph. D.!” 

But Helen was little interested in these discussions. 
Normally she would have been keen to do battle with 
him, and, in fact, she committed to paper many a 
humorous objection to his diatribes; but in her heart 
she was looking always for something which she never 
found; asking for a letter she never received. Every 
message was full of tender assurances, of “I love 
you”; and many of them called her “his wife,” and 
were signed, “Your husband”; but in no letter was 
there the actual assumption that they were, in truth, 
husband and wife. When he had written that he had 
asked Wallace to get some things from his cottage, 
it had hurt her to the quick. When he had told her 
of his father’s need of him, why hadn’t he said—“We* 
are needed down here; you had better come and help 
me comfort him?” 

After a great struggle she had gone to him and 


358 


Cx\BLES OF COBWEB 


offered herself without reservation; and she had as¬ 
sumed that night, as they read together those hymns 
of love, that they were married, were one. She had 
expected, when the blow had fallen, that he would say, 
“Come, we must go at once to mother.” But he didn’t 
say it; instead, there was a timid and apologetic 
deference in the very tone of his letters—he failed 
to affirm any actuality for their relationship, and made 
no demands. He left her, for all his tenderness, alone 
and unfulfilled. 

* * * * 

It was now well along into March, and the crocus 
blooms were out; soon there would be dog-wood and 
wild violets. The wheat showed green between the 
leaning shocks of corn that w r ere left; standing from 
the previous autumn, and on the wind-tossed boughs 
of the locust trees, buds were beginning to swell. 
Rhoda, moved by the twinges that tortured her stif¬ 
fening limbs, foretold such deluges of rain as the land 
had never known. 

When Jeffrey came down for breakfast it was nearly 
noon. He had sat up far into the night completing the 
first draft of his translation. 

“‘Good mawnin’? Good Lawd Gawd, you means 
‘Good evenin’, Mistah Jeffrey, yassah, you means 
‘evenin’. You jes’ like yo’ paw when he wuz young 
and survigrous—ump—that rhumatiz is agoin’ tu get 
me to my grave yet.—Liza!”—calling from the door, 
“staht some buckwheat cakes, an’ tell ’at good-fuh- 
nothin’ Grovah Cleveland to fetch three fresh aigs 
from the hen-house; an’ you put on some fresh coffee. 
Yassah, you is jes’ like yo’ paw—umph! Whut fuh 
does you stay up so late? Tain’t good fo’ yo’ consti- 
tucium.” 

“I’ve just finished a book, Aunt Rhoda, and I had 
to sit up until it was done.” 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


359 


“You ain’t meanin’ one a them trashy love stories?” 
with vast scorn. 

“It has something to do with love,” Jeffrey admit¬ 
ted, sprinkling a thick layer of brown sugar over his 
mush. “It tells about how we imagine love before we 
live it.” 

“They sho is a lotta diffunce. I recolleck how the 
young niggahs use to talk to me about how they 
would fetch in the wood, an’ split the kindlin, an’ tote 
the watah from the spring; but when I mahied Aleck, 
it didn’t take long for that tchune to change to ’Dey 
ain’t no watah fer me to drink, an me a workin hahd 
all day; whut de mattah wid you?’—Yas sah, they’s 
a big diffunce. But it ’pears to me that a likely young 
man like you is, would be a lovin’ the gals and not a 
writin’ about it.” 

“I’ll bring one home some of these days.” 

“Not no Nawthan lady?” Rhoda inquired anxiously. 

“I expect so. I know a mighty nice one.” 

“Do she know how to look aftah the cookin’, and 
men’ the socks, an’ awdah the pervisions, an’ sech 
like?” 

“She is very practical, as well as exceedingly pretty.” 

“Well this house sho’ do need a well managin’ white 

lady—Liza, where’d them aigs go? They’ve had time 

to hatch an’ grow up!’ 

* * * * 

Yes, thought Jeffrey, Helen will be a very practical 
manager for the home; and, what a hostess! Together 
they would make the big plantation house a center of 
social life, such as it had not been since the Civil 
War. They would divide their time between Virginia 
and Chicago. Yes, and from the city they would 
invite their friends to come and make merry with 
them over mint juleps, and the savory old wines from 
the cellar. The Mill Creek home would become 


360 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


known as a place where epicures and men of letters 
met to laugh away the fretting cares of a too stren¬ 
uous world. Fitzpatrick would like it; and he would 
like Helen too. “I’ll go down the Creek tomorrow 
and tell the old chap about her/’ he resolved. 


XXXIX 


( 1 ) 

AS they settled down in comfortable chairs for 
/ \ the evening smoke Mr. Collingsworth cleared 
-^-his throat nervously. 

“H’m—er, ah, my son, what is this that Rhoda and 
Fitzpatrick have been hinting about your—that is 
about some love affair. ... I mean serious love affair? 
Is there anything in it? There is. . . .” 

“Why, what} did they say?” countered his son, 
striving to cover his confusion by a witless attempt 
to strike a match against empty space. So Fitzpatrick 
had told, had he? Sly old devil. He should have known 
better. 

“Well,” chuckled the father, now beginning to feel 
relief in the face of his son’s discomfiture, “Rhoda 
hinted something to the effect that you had a North¬ 
ern sweetheart, that you might marry her some day; 
and Fitzpatrick rode by this afternoon and suggested 
that you might have a good reason for settling down 
at the old home. And, do you know,” he suddenly 
burst out with great feeling, “that would please me 
better than anything in the world. You need a good 
wife. . . . and this home needs a woman’s touch.” 
He turned away to hide the gathering tears. 

“I hesitated to tell you on account of—well, I 
thought you’d been through enough, and I though it 
might bother you,” Jeffrey confessed, wondering just 
how much he should tell. 

“Bother me! why, sir, it is healing to my soul. . . . 
and if that is her picture on your dresser, I should 
say that she is an excellent young lady, and that for 


362 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


once you have shown rare good judgment. Have you 
any definite plans?” 

“The truth is,” replied Jeffrey groping for as con¬ 
sistent a lie as possible under this unexpected turn 
of events, “that we had planned to get married about 
the time I received your telegram, and were just 
waiting until you should be feeling. . . .” 

“My advice to you, sir,” interrupted Mr. Collings¬ 
worth in great excitement, “is to make your arrange¬ 
ments as soon as posible. Go right back and marry 
Miss, er-” 

“Sherwood.” 

“Sherwood—a good name, sir—at as early a date as 
is convenient for her, and bring her home. . . . I’ll 
have Rhoda and her worthless girls go to work at once; 
we’ll make this old place shine .... and this will be 
a home again.” 

( 2 ) 

How easy it had all been;—how wonderful that in 
communicating his own hopes he had transformed 
the household into a center of expectancy and good 
cheer! His father had dropped the weight of years and 
sorrow as if by magic, and his face was radiant with 
a new gladness. He might yet live to see himself a 
grandfather! 

And the letter had been written telling Helen of 
how the revelation had been received, and of how he 
wanted to return at once to Chicago and bring her to 
the Virginia home. He had posted it the morning 
after his discovery. And after some thought he had 
added a paragraph that, he felt, would be particularly 
fetching—certainly a welcome relief to Aunt Kate:— 

“Revolt seems to me petty and childish—a gesture 
not in keeping with the great dignities of life. For 
the things that we despise there is only one answer— 




CABLES OF COBWEB 


363 


silent contempt. The notions, the prejudices, of the 
mob are unworthy the sword of a gentleman. To 
feign acquiescence is the part of wisdom. ... I was 
foolish to insist upon a free ceremony; we should have 
continually to justify it—and people do not merit 
such consideration. Moreover, it is wearying to the 
flesh and spirit. Let us go through the form of mar¬ 
riage—meaningless as it is—and have our life uninter¬ 
rupted by the bickerings of the bourgeois, and un¬ 
soiled by the filthy hands of the ‘plain people’. . . .” 

“Please let me know at once when we may have 
the wedding—as quiet as is consistent with Aunt 
Kate’s vanities—and when I can come to get you. . 

The letter had gone on Thursday morning. She 
would receive it by Saturday; he would have his an¬ 
swer Tuesday. And soon he would have his woman— 
the one reality left in this welter of life. After this 
primary satisfaction came books, wine, tobacco, and 
the hills and valleys of his native state; beyond these 
things nothing; but they were enough. Life was good! 


J 


xxxx 



OM didn’t approve of this riding horseback. The 


grooming added to his duties and did not con- 


tribute to his pleasure. Driving the car gave 
him a sense of power, and, as the machine whizzed 
through Darky Town, almost a feeling of proprietor¬ 


ship. 


“All ready, Tom?” Jeffrey was impatiently switch¬ 
ing his leggings with his riding quirt. 

“Yas sah, but why don’t you eveh let me drive you 
no moh? It don’t take but a few minits goin’ to no 
Oleburn that a way, an’ it’s style.” 

“I don’t care for that kind of style, Tom. Besides, 
horses are much more stylish now. ’Most everyone 
has a car; and then, I hate the speed and noise.” 

“Hm. Well sah, heah’s the old maah.” 

“I’ll be back in time for dinner. And Tom”—this 
for consolation—“When I bring my wife here, I’m 
going to let you drive us through the mountain coun¬ 
try for a week or so—kind of a wedding trip you 
know.” 

“This time a yeah, and mountain roads! Why, 
Mistah Jeffrey they ain’t no roads in them mountains 
cep’ gulleys, and they’ll be runnin’ mud.” 

“Then we’ll wait until later; but you shall drive us 
until you get your fill of it.” 

“All right, sah, I’ll sho drive you,” /grinned the 
black, shaking his head vigorously. “I’ll sho, drive 


you. 


Jeffrey was feeling particularly fit this day, and had 
risen early, eager to be off to Oldbern. For the last 
two days it had been almost impossible to keep still; 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


365 


he stalked about in nervous anxiety. Not that he had 
any doubt as to what her answer would be—he was 
too sure of her for that—but that he was intoxicate 
with the love of her, and hungry for the touch of her 
hand. He could not wait for the rural, delivery; it 
was beter to get to town where he could waylay old 
Tatum as he was sorting the rural mail, and thus save 
at least half an hour. Tatum had, for some time now, 
released the flea-bitten horse to the mountain pas¬ 
tures, and was driving a Ford, which convenience 
shortened the suspense of many an anxious maid who 
awaited, with twitching fingers, a Sears-Roebuck 
catalogue or a Woman’s Home Companion. But 
latterly, even this was not quick enough for Jeffrey; 
certainly not today. 

He was worried about Helen. The recent letters 
had been uniformly listless and brief. . . . Poor girl '• 
She was tired to death, he thought. A few months 
in this peaceful country would restore her boundless 
energy. Yes, there was sure to be a letter this day. 
It was Tuesday; Sunday she would have written. . . 
it was just now due. The thought comforted him. 
And, as he rode along, the fields were covered with 
a mist of loveliness, and the scented pines whispered 
of the sacred mystery of the quiet forest; and he an¬ 
swered with a song. 

Riding down High Street, he haled everyone with 
hearty cordiality, and paused long enough at each 
greeting to inquire about the “folks,” the weather 
and the coming crops. From the interest he seemed 
to take in these village people, an outsider might have 
mistaken him for a politician seeking re-election. 

The letter window of the small post-office was 
closed—the mail had evidently arrived, and was being 
distributed. He peered through the glass boxes, 
whistling merrily the while; or turned away in answer 


366 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


to a salutation. Second to throwing horse-shoes, the 
daily mail provided the town’s chief entertainment— 
moving pictures came only once a week—and the 
villagers were now forming a line before the delivery 
window. 

Collingsworth waited until he saw that the letters 
were all up. The men were now distributing papers 
and packages. He tapped on the door that led to the 
rear office, where rural-route officials worked. The 
door was slightly opened. 

“Hello, Mr. Collingsworth, what can I do for you?” 
asked a freckled assistant. 

“Hello, Peck, will you please ask Tatum to come 
here a moment—?” 

“Certainly.” 

“Howdy,” growled Totum, who hated to use any 
more energy than was strictly necessary. 

“Sorry to trouble you, Tatum, but I am particularly 
anxious about a letter I am expecting. Would you 
mind seeing if you have one for me in your pack?” 

“I reckon so,” snapped the old man, and waddled 
away mumbling something about ‘trying a body’s 
patience.” 

“. . . . Yes, here’s one. Hope that satisfies ye!” 

Jeffrey glanced at the writing on the envelope. “It 
does,” he responded with jubilant emphasis; “thanks 
for taking the trouble, Tatum; you may dance at my 
wedding—and, what’s more, drink, too!” 

“I’ll hold ye to that last, young man,” said the 
carrier, showing the first signs of amiability, “and 
don’t you fergit it.” 

“Right. I won't forget.” 

* * * * 

“Now to get somewhere where I can read, Nancy,“ 
he whispered, as he swung himself into the saddle. 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


367 


Then he remembered the old chestnut tree, underneath 
whose hospitable branches he had, as a boy, so often 
gone for solace and solitude. It was nearby. Here 
he would go to read this message of love. ... a long 
message, too, from the feel of it. “All about the 
dresses she has bought, and what we are to do at the 
wedding, and, best of all, she’ll be telling us when to 
come, and. . . . Get up, Nancy!” 

Ah, here wa3 the place; how familiar it seemed— 
the same old fence. He dismounted and hitched the 
mare in a corner, to one of the lichen-covered rails. 
“You wait a bit, old girl—stay, here is a lump of 
sugar. That’s a good girl.” 

Near the outer edge, where over-hanging boughs 
almost swept the ground, were some hawthorn bushes, 
grown thicker since he was a boy, and there, hid away 
from the curious human eyes, he would read. He 
broke the seal and sunk down upon the cool turf. A 
fearsome rabbit, disturbed by this invasion, scampered 
away for new cover. 

As he unfolded the thin white pages, the man’s face 
was alight with the glow of joyful preconception; to 
the very paper she had communicated the imperishable 
magic of her personality, he thought. But as he read, 
the eagerness seemed to give way to fear, and his 
hands shook so that he could scarcely hold the paper. 

“. . . .1 cannot, cannot do it,” he made out, through 
half blurred eyes. . . . “There is so much to be done. 
You, have given up the fight—the only fight worth 
while. ... I cannot, must not, settle down. . . 
Couldn’t see at first just what it meant; where you 
stood—and what I wanted. I know that if nothing- 
had happened that night to stop us, we would have 
gone along and behaved just as you had planned to 
do, and would have been brave, would have shared 
everything. But it would have been false, superficial. 


368 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


A great thing did happen, and under its over-powering 
weight, you forgot that we were one—or should have 
been. Not that I think there is any magic in the cere¬ 
mony, do I write these words, but that somehow the 
seal of social approval makes things more natural. 
But I am glad now that we did not have that seal, 
for then I wouldn’t have seen, wouldn’t have known. 
Just that lack of assumption on your part, in a mo¬ 
ment of unutterable grief, opened my eyes to the lack 
of comradeship—I was hungry for love, but I was 
wrong. . . . there is something greater. We can’t work 
together”—‘Work’ underscored—” I see it now. You 
would tolerate, but not share my interest—my passion 
for the future. . . . 

“So, in spite of you, and of Aunt Kate’s pleas, I 
am going away—I don’t know where—but away, and 
alone where I can rest and prepare foi* my part in 
making or trying to make, a world fit to live in. I 
hate compromise, laisses faire —Please, please for¬ 
give. ... I didn’t know. . . . didn’t mean to hurt. . . 
Forgive, and remember that I am going that you and 
I may be spared the hollow mockery of an unreal 
marriage. . . . You have come, through your pain, to 
the lonely path, where only a few may walk—and 
they, I fear, for their own discreet delight. I cannot 
walk there. ... I must go. ... it is final. . . .” 

❖ * * * * 

The sun sank behind the hills in the west, leaving 
a malefic crimson stain against the embanked clouds 
along the horizon. . . . By and by the stars came out, 
and Sirius flickered and winked at Orion, whilst Orion 
lifted his glittering club. The mare, in the fence- 
corner below, shifted uneasily and whinnied beseech¬ 
ingly to her master, but her master did not hear. 

As the darkness grew apace, two negroes—Major— 


CABLES OF COBWEB 


369 


now “Rev’unt”—Fenley and some woman of his flock— 
sought the seclusion of a nearby thicket for their 
immediate devotions. Thence came, presently, whis¬ 
pers, some sound of shuffling amongst the leaves, sighs, 
soft promises; then in louder tones—from the woman: 

“Oh! God sho’ is good to me; God sho’ is good/ ” 

Again there was a shuffling of the leaves, and then, 
taking opposite directions, two figures slunk quietly, 
listlessly, away and melted into the more inclusive 
darkness. 

As unmindful of this intrusion as the intruders 
were unaware of him, the man in the hawthorn sat 
as before. 

Off somewhere in the distance came the melancholy 
notes of a hunter’s horn, and the baying of a hound 
seemed to mock with derision. 

From over the top of the chestnut tree the jocund 
moon showed a face like amber wine. She seemed 
to smile—as umperturbed and blandly amused as 
aforetime. 


THE END. 



























* 



























K 




























































